Twins
by Earthcat123
Summary: Sequel to Same Old Story. Vert's younger sister Ronnie returns to Handler Corners after a stunt cycling accident, foolishly expecting it to be an uneventful stop-off on her way home to the city. Mere hours after her arrival drama descends upon the Battle Force Five in the form of Tezz's twin brother, Mikhail, and some very angry Vandals.
1. Chapter 1

**After some very helpful reviews from _The-Stupidest-Author-Ever _and _LittleDarling13_, I have written a sequel. If you haven't read Same Old Story, you should go away now and do so, but you don't NEED to if you really can't be bothered. But you should. Y'know. I have in the interim made one or two tweaks to Ronnie and the things she can do, so please will someone point out to me if she turns into too much of a Mary-Sue? T'would be most helpful. Anyway, that's enough from me. Enjoy this chapter!**

A solitary ball of tumbleweed tripped and turned its way across the baked desert of Handler Corners. It skipped past cacti, the occasional lizard, and twice the black and white car belonging to Sherriff Johnson, who each time frowned at it and scribbled it down in his notebook under the heading "Suspicious Behaviour." It bounced and rolled past the huge plastic pizza that towered into the sky, marking this desert's particular oasis; Zeke's Diner; to any travellers. It continued its journey out into the open sands, slowing and picking up speed according to the change in the wind. Sometimes there was no wind at all, and so the tumbleweed simply sat there, waiting in the cool night air for another gust to pick it up and sweep it on its way.

A roaring sound could be heard, many miles away but travelling far and fast in the still air. The tumbleweed skipped a foot along the road with a stray breath, and began to leap and dance erratically, flying this way and that as two fast-moving figures caused turbulence in the currents. They zipped past the tumbleweed, sending it soaring high into the sky in their wake and bringing it down again with a bump and a bounce. It followed them a while, until the wind picked up again and led it back on its original course across the desert.

The cause of the tumbleweed's sudden flight could be put down to two motorcycles, the riders of which were racing each other in friendly competition across the salt flats of Handler Corners. They veered and circled around one another, trying to pull ahead and gain the upper hand as they executed ever more daring moves and stunts to best the other at the game they both played. This went on for a few miles after the tumbleweed had left them behind, until the one up front waved a magenta-gloved hand and slowed down; they were nearing their destination: Zeke's Diner. Reluctantly, the black-clad companion let off the gas too, and seconds later the pair slid to an abrupt stop in the parking lot.

The lot was otherwise empty besides a road-worn Mitsubishi pickup truck parked at an angle between the two disabled spaces right by the door, and both riders eyed it with distain as they dismounted. They were from the City; such poor parking was against their senses of justice.

"I thought you said Zeke's truck was blue," Lucinda Demourney, the black rider, frowned at her friend.

"I did," Ronnie Wheeler confirmed. "That isn't it."

"What, another guest at this hour?" Lucinda mimicked an English accent, for no apparent reason. "Oh, for God's sake," she loudly continued, "will you stop that?"

Ronnie glared at her and carried on massaging her aching shoulder. "You know, the doctors said I shouldn't be riding for another week."

"That's what they always say. Come on, you only dislocated it. It's not like it's the end of the world."

"But the Paramedics at the course were looking at me like they'd just witnessed a Biblical miracle; I could - and should, apparently - have done a lot worse."

Lucinda rolled her eyes. "Quit your whining, seriously. It's not like it was my fault."

"No, Luce, it wasn't your fault at all. It was entirely mine for letting you talk me into stunt cycling in the first place." Ronnie pushed open the door to the Diner as she continued to glare at her friend, not even remotely expecting to collide with someone coming the other way as she did so. The man lost his footing and stumbled into the doorframe, looking up only briefly from the handheld computer he was studying to right himself and apologise, quietly but sincerely, in a heavy Eastern European accent before carrying on. Ronnie smiled by way of forgiveness, but he probably didn't even see her. She watched him for a moment from the doorway, smile slowly fading into a studious confusion; something about him was familiar. Many things, actually. He was similar to her in age, with thin black hair falling over narrow brown eyes. He had a very prominent Eastern European accent, and he was almost ridiculously tall and skinny. There was only one other person around these parts who shared that description. Could it be..?

No, it couldn't. The co-incidence would be mind-blowing. Shaking her head slightly she smiled to herself, before turning around again and retreating into the comforting warmth of the Diner.

"Who was that?" Lucinda asked from behind her.

"No idea," Ronnie clarified. She waved a hello to Grace as they both slid onto bar stools. "The owner of our scandalously parked pickup, probably."

"Really? Only 'cause you looked for a second like you knew him from somewhere."

"Yeah, well. He looks like someone I know, that's all. Or at least I thought he did."

"Right."

"Well, well," Grace interrupted them before they could take off again. "Back so soon, Ronnie?"

"Oh, Grace meet Luce, Luce meet Grace."

"Nice to meet you. What can I get you guys?"

"Two of the usual," Ronnie instructed before Lucinda could respond. "Give her a menu and we'll be here until midnight."

"It already is midnight," Grace teased over her shoulder as she nudged open the door to the back room. Ronnie's jaw dropped.

"She's kidding."

"Nope," Lucinda showed her the face of her watch. "Zero-oh-three precisely."

"Jeez, we're later than I thought we'd be."

"So you're telling me that magical bike of yours doesn't tell time too?"

"Of course it does; I was just a little distracted on the way down here."

"You mean worried about losing."

"Luce, my bike could run rings around yours without me even riding it. I wanted to take it easy with that wheel problem."

"Aww, does Ronnie not think she can repair a faulty wheel join by herself?" Lucinda crooned. Ronnie was tempted to hit her.

"Not that one, no. I can't even begin to understand the science behind..."

"Dude, a wheel join's a wheel join, regardless of where in the... What was it again?"

"Multiverse."

"Right. Regardless of wherever in the multiverse you come from. A wrench would do just fine."

"Okay then, when my front wheel does fall off, you can fix it for me."

"You're so funny."

"I know. Now shut up and eat your pie."

"Pie huh?"

Ronnie rolled her eyes at Grace as she slid two plates of Zeke's speciality pie down on the counter in front of them, complete with tall soda cups. Grace sniggered; she'd heard the whole conversation.

"You two headed for Vert's?" she asked as she moved around the Diner flipping off lights and wiping down tables.

"Yeah," Lucinda explained, "We were in Kansas City for one of the JSCC shows, and our plan was to head straight back home..."

"But my front wheel has been making a racket ever since we left the city boundary," Ronnie continued, mostly to prevent her friend from mentioning her dislocated shoulder. "So I figured I could use the pit-stop. And it's been what, seven months?"

"Eight," Grace corrected. "Not that anyone's counting."

Ronnie whistled through her teeth and more pie. "Wow. That long, huh? Feels like two at most."

Grace shrugged. "I'd love to tell you what's changed around here, but you know Handler Corners."

Ronnie laughed. "Frozen in time."

It was well after one AM when they finally left, after Grace essentially kicked them out because she had to get home and sleep before opening time the following morning. The two friends were laughing as they went out the door, feeling sleepy themselves now with food inside them. Ronnie was glad that her brother's garage was only half a mile down the road, otherwise she might have been tempted to ask Grace if they could bunk with her for the night.

Lucinda didn't try and resume their race, knowing full well that she had no idea where they were going from the Diner and if she tried to overtake Ronnie, her friend would simply leave her behind and make her ride around the desert for a few hours before coming to get her. Many people had often wondered if the two of them were actually friends, or if they simply tolerated each other's company for practical reasons. Sometimes Lucinda even wondered that herself, but she knew that there was nothing she could do that Ronnie couldn't herself. If Ronnie didn't want her around, she would have made it plainly clear by now.

The brilliant white lights in the scarlet-painted underground access tunnel had been dimmed for the night, which was certainly a relief to the riders' eyes, having already been accustomed to the dark despite the short length of their ride. Ronnie squinted in preparation for the Hub itself to be as brightly lit as it always was, but was surprised to find it darker than the tunnels, lit by a cool blue glow that seemed not to emanate from any particular place but engulf the whole main room just enough to see by. She remembered that this was how it had been when she had first seen it, and assumed that this was its after-hours ambience. That meant that the Battle Force Five would all be asleep; good. She wasn't awake enough to handle a full-on greeting from them all. She rolled to a gentle stop alongside the Sabre, indicating for Lucinda to do the same. A smile came to Ronnie's lips as she took in the other Battle Force Five vehicles; being in the Hub again reminded her that the last adventure they had shared wasn't just a figment of her imagination.

The sole occupant of the spacious Hub was Sage, and Ronnie felt Lucinda stare from behind her at the Sentient as she rounded a quantum computer bank to greet them.

"Ronnie," she said, a smile in her voice. "I was not expecting you."

"I wasn't really expecting to stop by either," Ronnie confessed. Pleasantries were halted as Sage glanced over Ronnie's shoulder, and her friendly expression faltered on her face.

"Oh, Sage this is my old friend Lucinda Demourney," Ronnie was quick to introduce. "Luce, meet Sage."

"It is certainly a pleasure," Sage offered, sounding as if the truth was somewhat different. Ronnie glanced behind her; Lucinda was gaping, mouth wide open, at Sage's blue translucent form, doing nothing whatsoever to hide the fact that she was fascinated by the truth of Ronnie's old stories. Ronnie elbowed her hard in the side, bringing her back into the real world.

"Oh, Christ, sorry. Hi. I'm not actually that vacant. It's just... Wow."

"I thought you said you believed me," Ronnie pretended to pout.

"Well yeah, I did, but... The reality is always so much more... Y'know..."

"Tell me about it."

"I trust you do not need reminding of the secrecy under which the Battle Force Five operates," Sage hinted, a cautionary note creeping into her clear voice.

"Sage, Luce has been my best friend for four years. She wouldn't breathe a word, and besides, who's going to believe her anyway?"

"I swear this ain't leaving my mouth," Lucinda promised. This seemed to satisfy Sage, who smiled and visibly relaxed.

"Very well. I presume you have noticed that the others have long since retired to bed."

"Yeah, makes sense," Ronnie agreed.

"And if it's not too much of a fuss, I'd like to join them," Lucinda hinted, none too subtly.

"You are such a complainer," Ronnie chided, before scooping her rucksack out of the Hornet's saddle compartment. "I'm gonna show this one where the spare rooms are. Could you do me a favour? The Hornet's front wheel join's been making a racket ever since we left Kansas City, and I didn't have the guts to try and investigate it on the road."

"I will perform a diagnostic," Sage promised, pulling up the computer display without any further fanfare.

"Thanks, Sage," Ronnie smiled. She took a few moments to watch the Hornet swing up into the Hub's ceiling, fascinated by the Sentient technology, then led the still-waiting Lucinda through the rec area and down the corridor towards the bedrooms.

"You have so gotta give me a tour of this place in the morning," she yawned, already retreating backwards into the comfort of her room. Ronnie waved absently in response, far too tired to even consider formulating a verbal response.

**Please leave me a review and let me know your opinions of chapter one!**


	2. Chapter 2

She slept long and hard that night, and woke finally understanding the meaning of the phrase "slept like a log;" she felt like she hadn't moved an inch in eleven hours. By the time she had washed and dressed it was after midday, and she slid out of her room in full knowledge that the team would already know she was there.

"...so he pulls a one-eighty flip and lands right next to me, then stands up on his handlebars and aims a kick at my head!"

"Seriously? What did you do?"

Ronnie chuckled at the spectacle before her in the rec room; Lucinda had Zoom captivated by her extremely embellished story of one of her stunt shows, and AJ, Sherman and Spinner were all lounging around the room, pretending not to be interested.

"I dodged it and swerved away so tightly that he lost his balance and went flying. Then he was disqualified and I won, plain and simple."

"That is so cool! What about that semi-final in 2011 when your bike got trashed doing that dirt mound stunt?"

"Whatever she tells you," Ronnie interrupted, "Is a lie. She has never told this story the same twice in a row."

"Aw, come on, even you've got to admit that my version is better."

"Better but wrong. So wrong."

"Alright, alright, I'll tell him the true version. So I'm halfway through the course, right, and..."

Ronnie sniggered to herself again and left the rec area; she had other people to find.

The sound of roaring engines led her to the ground level test track the Hub supported, and she watched for five or so minutes as the Tangler, Reverb and Sabre chased each other around the tight corners and carefully lain obstacles. She smiled to herself again; her brother was clearly holding back, letting the other two believe that they even stood a chance of equalling the Sabre's intense speed. If she knew him at all, Vert's car would be faster than all the rest put together.

A buzzer sounded the end of their practise time and Vert immediately pulled over beside Ronnie's place at the boundary, letting Stanford and Agura finish their lap. And another seven more after that.

"You know, you could have called ahead," He teased, jumping from the Sabre's cockpit and enveloping Ronnie in a hug.

"Where would be the fun in that? And anyway, I didn't even know I was coming; the Hornet started making funny noises when we left Kansas City."

"What were you doing there?"

"Mom wanted something - I swear she has found the only restaurant supplies company in the entirety of the United States that doesn't deliver - and Luce had a show so I went with her."

"Oh yes, Lucinda Demourney," Vert chuckled. "I hear she's gone down very well with the team."

"Zoom is transfixed," she confirmed, "And AJ and the Cortez boys aren't far behind."

Vert smirked again, then put an arm around her shoulders and led her back inside. "Come on. Let's get in before these two finish and..."

"...You were cheating!"

"Stanford, we were racing. How can I cheat in a race?"

"If it is possible, you will find a way to do it."

"Unbelievable..."

"Do that?" Ronnie looked up at her brother with a cheeky glint in her eye. Vert sighed.

"Yeah, that. Come on in, we're gonna head to Zeke's for lunch once we've freshened up."

"Can it wait five? Where's Tezz?"

Vert raised an eyebrow at his sister. As an older brother, he didn't much like the way those two looked at each other, and he still hadn't gotten out of Tezz what had happened between the two of them when he went up to visit her in the city two months ago. "Where do you think?" was his only response. Ronnie knew where he meant; Tezz would be downstairs, doing something clever and scientific with a computer. She laughed away her brother's suspicious expression, not even knowing enough about the situation between herself and Tezz to offer any other response, and returned to the rec area to a scene unchanged from when she had left it.

"...and I landed it fine, which is the only reason why it counted, but the engine refused to start up again afterwards. Still don't know why, actually. So I hand it over to my mechanics who tell me it'll take them a day or more to fix, but of course the final's the next morning, so..."

"So," Ronnie once again interrupted her friend, "I'm in town for literally like ten minutes, and what does she do? She pays some guy she knows to take me out for a coffee, and then steals my bike from the parking lot. All that stuff in the papers about me lending it to her out of the kindness of my heart? Pack of lies."

"Come on," Lucinda tried to defend herself. "You would never have said yes had I asked nicely, would you?"

"Well no, I wouldn't have, but it's the thought that counts."

Lucinda scoffed and turned to AJ as he started firing his own questions at her, giving Ronnie the opportunity to slip away to the lower levels.

Tezz was precisely where she thought he would be; standing in front of the Quantum Computer bank in the Hub's central bay. He had his back to her, and she watched him for a few moments before approaching. He heard her coming and glanced over his shoulder briefly before retracting the computer display. He was just a moment too slow to hide his program from Ronnie; he was analysing the Hornet's diagnostic results. Her heart plunged into her stomach - there was no way he hadn't figured out by now what she'd been up to lately.

He folded his arms and turned to her with an expression that mirrored the one Vert had given her minutes before upstairs, and Ronnie sighed, dropping her smile and accepting her fate.

"Okay, go on then." She looked around herself for something to lean on, but came up with nothing.

"What have you been doing?" he spoke slowly, emphasising every word with equal importance. "The Hornet shows signs of extensive impact damage as well as many attempts to reinforce the wheel structures." At this point he had to bring up his diagnostic again to consult his notes. She was smug for a moment, but then realised just how many notes he had taken. "The problem you were experiencing with your front wheel axel was not serious. The bolt securing it in place was simply coming loose due to repetitive vibrations caused by high-velocity impacts concentrated in that area; I will have to show you how to remove the dirt cover to access the join in future."

"You're enjoying the fact that you know more about this than I do, aren't you?"

"No," he said, minimising the computer screen again and looking at her properly. "I gain no pleasure in that which is inevitable. You are avoiding my question."

"You are insufferable..."

"Ronnie."

"Alright, fine." She sighed and kicked at the floor, suddenly very interested in the toes of her boots. "A couple of months back I got into stunt cycling. The damage is from my training runs with Luce."

"So you were in Kansas City for the stunt show," he muttered.

"Yeah. Originally I was just there to watch Luce and pick something up for Mom, but then they had a vacancy, and I don't know."

Tezz bit down on his bottom lip and turned back to his computer. He flicked through files in silence, his body tense. He was angry, that much she could tell. And she didn't like it.

"Please say something."

"It's not my place to say it."

"To say what? That I shouldn't be doing it?"

"Yes." He rounded on her again, his eyes suddenly wide and fierce. "You don't need me to tell you how dangerous it is; how often did you say Lucinda breaks limbs doing it? You're sixteen Ronnie, you..." he halted in his tirade; at the mention of injuries Ronnie had looked away from him, unable to hide it from him if she didn't. It seemed she was unable to hide it from him anyway; he could read her too well.

"Please tell me you didn't..." his voice was barely a whisper.

"I dislocated my shoulder, okay?" the words seemed to explode from her. He had been right; it wasn't any place of his to give her this rant. "What's the big deal? Breaks heal."

He put his hands on her shoulders. "Not always. A fall like that... If you hadn't been wearing your shock suit you would probably have lost use of your arm."

"Don't be so dramatic."

"I'm a mathematician, not a thespian. I ran simulations."

"Wait... You saw it. You were watching?"

"Yes."

"What? How?"

Tezz sighed, suddenly unwilling to admit just how much he had been monitoring her since the thought had begun to settle in his mind that she was involved in extreme stunt cycling. "Your mother's restaurant is decorated with certificates of your exploits. I've been keeping track of the JSCC ever since I visited."

"How the Hell do you notice things like that?"

Tezz shrugged. He had upset her now; that much was obvious. She watched him for a few moments more, sighed again, and softened her tone.

"Please don't tell Vert," she begged. He frowned at her.

"Why not?"

"Because he will only lecture me. I have had this lecture from my mother, my younger brother, Lucinda of all people, and now you. I don't need it from him. And besides, he'll then worry about me for the rest of time, and you guys have your own problems."

Tezz considered this for a minute. "I do not like to lie to Vert."

"I know. I'm not asking you to lie to him, just don't tell him."

"And if he asks?"

"Is he likely to?"

He thought again, torn between his loyalties. Eventually he gave up; he was never going to say no to her. He gave her a grudging smile, and she beamed broadly in return.

"So why were you in Kansas City?" he asked, to confirm her cover story.

"Moral support for Luce, and because Mom wanted me to pick something up from a restaurant supplies company down there. It was only a box of serviettes, but they wouldn't even send it in the mail. And that part's actually true."

Tezz chuckled, a fun, warm sound, and Ronnie felt that even though he was certain to bring the subject up again, she was forgiven at least for the time being.

"Actually they would, but your Mom sends you up there because she knows you have a thing for the company director's kid," Lucinda called over from the doors to the rec area. Ronnie felt herself turning scarlet. "What was his name again? Tom something."

"Tommy Saunders," Ronnie supplied in a mumble, casting a glance over at Tezz. He had returned his attention to his computer, his jaw tight. For a moment she felt like explaining things to him, but never had the chance; the rest of the team were emerging behind her friend.

"And I do not have a thing for him; he can't even change a tyre." She continued instead. "Besides, Luce, did no one ever teach you not to eavesdrop?"

"Nah, I just walked in. The rabble want pizza, and I need to hit the road."

"You're heading off already?"

"Yeah. I've got somewhere to be this afternoon, remember?"

"Oh yeah, those trials are today. Hey, can you do me a favour?"

"Maybe..."

Ronnie took her friend's elbow and led her back to their parked bikes, out of earshot of the rest of the team. "Can you drop that thing with my mom for me?"

Lucinda raised an eyebrow. "Planning on sticking around?"

"Yeah. Not for long, but she should probably see this sooner." She reached into the Hornet's saddle compartment and pulled out a folded piece of paper and the small cardboard box of pre-triangled napkins.

"She's gonna freak," Lucinda stated, indicating the paper. "Even more than you did."

"Yeah, that's not up for dispute." The piece of paper was an official document from the Kansas State paramedics who had been present at the stunt course, informing those legally responsible for Veronica Wheeler that she had dislocated her left shoulder at the Junior Stunt Cycle Challenge show in Kansas City eight days ago. Suffice it to say that Mrs Wheeler was not going to be best pleased.

"And your brother's gonna kill you."

"I wasn't planning on telling him..."

"No, the other one; Jeremy. What was it he said? 'If you hurt yourself I'll end you'?"

Ronnie sighed at the mention of the third Wheeler sibling; she had often thought that their younger brother deserved to know about the Battle Force Five, but the kid was only fourteen - he just wasn't old enough to get involved.

"Then I suppose I'll have to hide out here as long as possible."

"Yeah, because that'll so work out. Speaking of, do you still want me to sign you up for the Des Moines show next month?"

If looks could kill, Lucinda would have died, suddenly and violently, as a result of the glare Ronnie shot her.

"Yeah, fine," she conceded, expression softening. Lucinda grinned.

"Living dangerously, I like it."

"Alright, get outta here," Ronnie ordered, raising her voice again so that the team could hear. Lucinda's grin broadened as she swung her leg over her black bike.

"See you around, Zoom," she called over Ronnie's shoulder and winked.

"Yeah, totally," he replied, his own face splitting into a grin.

Ronnie shook her head at her friend. "Go now," she insisted, pointing down the crimson tunnel. Lucinda laughed.

"Later."

"Mmhmm."

Ronnie didn't watch her go; she would see her again in less than twenty four hours; but instead turned to face the Hub, and the Battle Force Five who were all waiting eagerly by their vehicles.

"What's this I hear about pizza?"

They erupted into cheers as she joined them in mounting up, aware the entire time of Tezz's intense brown stare on her back.

"Hold on a second, Ronnie," AJ confronted her as he climbed down from the Gearslammer's cab to continue the argument she'd started on the drive over. "Your mom owns a pizza restaurant too."

"Yeah, she does, so I know what goes into these things."

"Dough, tomato sauce, stringy cheese and pepperoni," Spinner recited, sounding in love.

"And," Ronnie continued, "A whole lot of flavourings and nasty stuff."

"'Za is a beautiful creation, Veronica. Whoever invented it should be rewarded."

"That would be the Italians, little bro."

"Right. I knew that."

The nine of them huddled in through the door of Zeke's Diner and slid into seats at their usual booth. Tezz dropped onto the corner next to Ronnie, but she still felt guilty; he hadn't said a word since they'd left the Hub.

"I just don't get how you guys can eat it and nothing else all the time. I mean, there is no way you're getting enough stuff to live out of it."

"Actually Ronnie," Agura contradicted, a smile on her face and in her voice, "There's carbohydrate, sugars, protein... And you could argue that the tomato paste has all the vitamins a person needs in it."

Ronnie pursed her lips; she didn't have a comeback for that one. The team started to giggle, and Stanford leaned his chin on his fist across the table.

"Didn't really think this one through, did you love?"

Ronnie raised her hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay, I admit defeat," she laughed with them and looked away in embarrassment, casting her eyes around the Diner instead of meeting any of their gazes. The laughter drained from her face as she locked eyes with another pair, a dark pair, that flashed angrily over a small handheld computer.

"What is it?" Tezz asked softly with a frown, sensing her sudden change in mood. When she offered no response he followed her gaze to the back corner of the diner. He took a moment to focus on the newcomer and his eyes narrowed in confusion for the briefest of moments before widening to three times their normal size in shock. Ronnie felt him stiffen beside her. The mystery man continued to stare for a few moments more and then stood up, and without taking his eyes from Tezz's collected his belongings and strode out the door. Wordlessly Tezz pushed himself up from the table and followed.

"What the Hell..? AJ was the first to break the team's stunned silence.

"Who was that?" Spinner demanded. "Ronnie, do you know that guy?"

"I think it wouldn't be too dangerous to say that he's Tezz's brother," Ronnie confessed, finally voicing the suspicions she had been having since the night before. Across from her, Stanford scoffed.

"Tezz doesn't have any brothers," he insisted.

"Really? And you would know that how?"

"Let's face it, Agura, he has never mentioned one."

"Guys, Tezz doesn't talk about anything besides electromagnetism and advanced physics," Zoom pointed out.

"True..."

"Haven't we been here before?" Sherman reminded them, referencing when Ronnie herself had first shown up in Zeke's and they had spent the entire journey back arguing about her identity.

"Ronnie," Vert whispered to her while the rest of the team were still trying to piece it together, "Have you seen that guy before?"

"Yeah, he was in here last night. I thought he was Tezz for a split second; he looked so much like him. Even at the time I couldn't help but think they were related. And then that reaction? They could be brothers; it's not impossible."

"No, it's not, but we can't be sure; Tezz never says anything about his family."

"I know," she agreed, remembering how emotional he was the last and only time they had discussed the subject. Suddenly she was on her feet and out of the booth, running across the Diner to the parking lot outside. She didn't know what she had expected to find, but she wasn't surprised to see the Splitwire gone and no sign of that road-weary Mitsubishi pickup truck either.

**So what do we think so far? Love it? Hate it? This-bit-was-good-but..?**

**Also, I know I've already made it very obvious who the mystery guy is from the summary, but was wondering if that knowledge is not ruining the story somewhat… Let me know by posting a review! **


	3. Chapter 3

It couldn't be him. Tezz gripped the steering wheel even harder, turning the skin on his already-white knuckles translucent under the pressure. It just couldn't be, not after so many years. He tasted blood in his mouth and realised he had bitten all the way through his lower lip. It began to ache but he ignored it, focused instead on the red glow of the tail lights in front of him. His tense body longed to stamp down on the accelerator and leave the Mitsubishi pickup far behind in his wake, to just drive and drive until he reached some place where no one could possibly find him again. How had he found him here, anyway? He had never been into the town, never been seen by anyone besides the Battle Force Five. He didn't understand. It was the simplest question; how? But always the most complicated to answer.

The Mitsubishi climbed higher and higher, and Tezz realised where he was being lead. He must have combed the surrounding area with meticulous detail, he realised, in order to find the track to the cliffs that surrounded the Handler Corners salt flats. His heart raced, and his vision blurred with tears that he angrily wiped away. What were they for? He wasn't upset, he wasn't overwhelmed with joy. He was... He didn't know what he was. It was as if a cold weight had dropped on his chest and was slowly squashing the life out of him, making him unable to feel a thing.

Finally the Mitsubishi stopped, right on the edge, and its lights died. The driver climbed out of the cab. Tezz sat still for a moment, killing the Splitwire's engine but not its lights. Ronnie Wheeler had warned him that he would have to face his family eventually... He had just always imagined that it would be on his terms, not theirs.

Finally he realised he could not put this off any longer. He popped the door and pulled himself out, taking his time, deliberately stalling in order to work out what to say, or whether or not he could run for it.

He lifted his gaze and with a sudden and unexpected stab of guilt looked into a face almost identical to his own, into a pair of eyes that burned fiercely into his with the same passion he knew his could create. They belonged to the tall figure of his twin brother, Mikhail Volitov.

The brothers stared into each other's eyes for many long minutes, neither offering to speak first. A plethora of emotions slowly filtered into Tezz's as they also began to register in his thoughts. Guilt, pain, sorrow and regret were the greatest among them. Mikhail's meanwhile showed only one: burning and unadulterated anger.

"I don't know whether to hug you or to punch you," he eventually stated, quietly in clear Russian. A jolt ran through Tezz; he hadn't heard anyone else speak it in so long.

"That is perfectly understandable given the circumstances," he responded. He didn't know what to do himself, although he had to admit punching wasn't on the list of possible options.

Mikhail began to shake his head, causing Tezz to immediately regret his words. He should be apologising, begging his brother's forgiveness and explaining everything. But he didn't. Because on top of it all he knew that he did not regret his actions in the slightest.

"I don't understand..." Mikhail started, and faltered where he could not find the words to express himself. "I don't... We thought you were dead."

Tezz closed his eyes, fighting back the urge to let his emotions overwhelm him from one angle or another.

"I mean... we held a funeral for you and everything."

Tezz's eyebrows shot up. He had not expected him to say that.

"Don't look so surprised. We thought... I don't..."

"Mikhail," Tezz interrupted his brother's stumbling half-sentences. The word felt strange in his mouth, wrong almost, as if it wasn't meant to be there. He sighed, aware that his tone was too stern for the situation, and moved past him to sit on the edge of the cliffs. After a moment's hesitation, Mikhail joined him.

"We thought you had been kidnapped at first," he continued, having ordered his thoughts. "Father had the police search everywhere, but we knew that if somebody wanted to keep you hidden it wouldn't be difficult. We even tried looking for that car, but..." He trailed off, refusing to meet Tezz's gaze. Tezz watched him out of the corner of his eye; how he opened his mouth every so often as if to start a sentence but then closed it again having decided against it. He himself still said nothing. He couldn't think of what to say; his mind was jumbled, with a thousand questions pushing and shoving to be asked first, and a thousand more waiting patiently for their turn behind. He watched instead how the Splitwire's headlights cast strange, eerie shadows across the grass beneath them and played with the angles on Mikhail's face. He remained quiet, allowing their silence to stretch well beyond fifteen minutes. Still he couldn't find the words he was looking for, the words that would solve everything between them in just one sentence. He began to wonder if nine years could actually be solved so quickly, or if he was beyond that now.

"In a way it's strangely beautiful," Mikhail suddenly whispered, staring out across the flats. One of Tezz's eyebrows raised a fraction. Not the word he would have used. Impressive, certainly, but the barren desert contained no features that could be considered beautiful. He watched his brother again, more openly this time. He sat hunched over, his hands in his lap, with both feet dangling over the edge. He was scraping the heels of his shoes against the cliff wall, and the sound was becoming strangely hypnotic.

Finally one question pushed itself to the front of his mind. He knew it was the worst one to ask; while it was the most important to him, it did nothing to try to redeem him for his actions.

"Why are you here, Mikhail?"

The younger twin by a whole six minutes turned sharply to face his brother, and fixed him with a stare that read incomprehension. Of all the possible things he could have said, why that? Was it really so hard to work out?

"I was looking for you," he said finally, and watched his brother's eyes widen and eyebrows narrow at the same time. It was a rather spectacular feat of muscle dynamics, he had to admit.

"No." Tezz refused to believe it. "How did you know where to look?"

"I didn't," Mikhail stated, wondering just how long it would take him to figure it out. He remembered Tezz being cleverer than this. Still he stared, not understanding, that peculiar expression on his face. Mikhail sighed and gave in.

"Tezz, I have driven across the entire country trying to find some sign of you."

Tezz spluttered a laugh. That couldn't be true - he refused to believe that any blood relation of his was that sentimental. But Mikhail's sincere, steady gaze slowly wiped the forced amusement from his face.

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did." Mikhail drew one leg up and wrapped an arm around it, causing Tezz to check himself; he did exactly the same thing when he was uncomfortable.

"But... Why?"

Again that expression of disbelief, as if Mikhail didn't know whether to think Tezz was deliberately playing with him or if he genuinely couldn't see it. He looked away and chewed on his lip, wording his response carefully.

"Did you know that after the police investigation drew up a blank, Father had the case shut down? This was about a year and a half after you... disappeared. He said that if you were going to come back, you would do so of your own accord and no amount of searching would do any good. Mother didn't speak to him for three years."

He paused then, letting this little bit of information sink in. He stole a glance at Tezz; at least he had the decency to look ashamed of himself. "When she did finally talk to him again it was only to arrange the divorce."

The ice that had slowly been settling in around Tezz's heart suddenly stabbed and overwhelmed him at the word. He hadn't thought - deliberately so - of the implications of his disappearance, but only because he knew that it was a futile exercise. As a result, however, he had never considered that his entire family had been torn apart as a result. The information shouldn't have surprised him; what else could possibly have happened? But for some reason it took him completely by surprise. He noticed Mikhail's shoulders shudder slightly, and his voice thickened.

"You destroyed our lives, Tezz. Some part of me knows, or wants to believe at any rate, that you didn't mean to do it, but... It got to the point when I just couldn't sit around wondering anymore. I had to find you. Either you, or some sign that you didn't just vanish off the face of the Earth."

Which is exactly what I did, Tezz thought, but still kept quiet. He had read the phrase "some sign that you'd died" between the lines of his brother's words.

A few stray tears trickled down Mikhail's face, leaving trail patterns through the travel grime that covered it. He didn't wipe them away, but stayed staring intently at Tezz's face, watching every emotion that crossed it. He had his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and was staring intensely out across the desert, his own eyes glittering.

"I didn't..." he tried, fighting the emotions that threatened to consume him and destroy his reason. He swallowed hard and began again.

"I didn't mean to." Finally looking up he met his brother's gaze, and pierced a new hole in his lip with the effort not to dissolve into tears himself.

"So why? What happened that night, Tezz? Tell me; why did you just drive off like that?"

Tezz turned away and put his chin back on his forearms, every muscle in his body straining against his desire to apologise, tell Mikhail everything about the Multiverse and Battle Force Five, and promise to go home with him and beg forgiveness to his parents. He knew that's what anyone else would have done.

But he also knew the utmost secrecy under which the BF5 operated, and he knew that he could not divulge it to Mikhail. Not even under these circumstances.

"I can't." The whisper was almost inaudible, even to himself.

"No!" Mikhail suddenly shouted, leaping up to his feet. Wearily Tezz followed, a heavy weight settling on his chest as he did so that smothered the ice and completely blocked out his emotions. His only driver, the only thing now influencing his argument, was the cold logic that there were certain things he could not tell his brother. He didn't need computer simulations to work out which direction this conversation was taking; he straightened himself up to his full height, hoping that the extra inch he had on him would put him off getting too angry.

"I will not accept that," Mikhail continued, voice growing louder and sharper with every word. "I have driven further than you can imagine to find you and bring you home; you will at least do me the courtesy of telling me why!" Suddenly he lunged forward and grabbed the lapels of Tezz's jacket, his eyes burning with that fierce anger yet again. It was a formidable sight, and for a moment Tezz was afraid. But it only lasted a moment. He knew that he was more powerful than his brother, even without the tricks his electromagnetic glove gave him; he had been training in combat for the last year, after all. He fixed Mikhail with a level stare that bordered on outright hostility and waited for his grip to loosen before taking his wrists and none-too-gently pushing him away. Mikhail's expression lost none of its anger, but showed a grim understanding. And disappointment. It was the disappointment that Tezz couldn't bear to face. They stood in silence again, staring into each other's eyes, just the way they had before.

"I get it," Mikhail finally spat. "We mean nothing to you, do we?"

The question made Tezz jump, and something - guilt, he supposed - broke through his emotion block. That wasn't true, not at all.

"Mother was right," Mikhail carried on, "I shouldn't have done this." He turned to move past Tezz towards his truck, holding his brother's eye for as long as he could before preparing to forget him completely. Tezz realised he was leaving, that he had the express intention of never setting eyes on him again, and for the longest three seconds of his life warred with himself over what he should do. His options were to either let him go, this forever being between them, or he could tell him everything. Neither appeared particularly appealing.

"Mikhail, no." Tezz took a half-step towards him and grabbed his arm, brain working overtime for a compromise. He had to make at least some peace between them, even though nothing he could say would ever be enough to satisfy him. But he had to try.

"What?" His brother hissed. Everything was moving too fast; Tezz knew he had mere seconds to get Mikhail's attention and keep it before he marched off, but he didn't for the life of him know what to say to get it.

"You want to know where I've been," he settled upon, speaking quickly and with a note of desperation in his voice. "But I genuinely cannot tell you. There are just some things that... I..."

He stopped with a sigh, and closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself. "If you sit down," he began again "and CALM down, I will tell you what I can."

He tried to remove all hostile emotions from his face, and instead offered Mikhail an encouraging, almost pleading expression. The younger twin threw his hands up in a gesture that seemed to say "oh what the Hell" before striding past his brother and plonking himself in exactly the same spot as before. Arms folded, he waited for Tezz to get comfortable and begin his explanations.

Vert's first thought when the music began playing, none too loudly, through the Hub's central PA system was that Ronnie must have found the main computer. No one, not even Stanford, had ever tried this before in the two years Battle Force Five had been in operation, so it was a sound judgement to make. Tezz would be proud, he thought dryly, wondering the corridors towards the garage room.

He watched his sister for a moment or two before closing in, wondering what she was looking through. It startled him how much she had changed, even from a distance, since her last visit eight months ago. She had filled out a bit, and was more confident in her movements; before she had held her arms by her sides as if she was trying to occupy as little space as possible, but now made every slight movement as if she owned the air she moved in. He knew what had caused this transformation, of course, but had never expected it to be this dramatic.

"He's been up there for hours," she muttered as he neared behind her.

"Who's been where?"

"Tezz. He's up on the cliffs, where he has been, unmoving, for the last four hours. I have no idea what's going on, and that irritates me."

Vert's eyebrow rose, unbidden, from its usual place. He forced it down again; he would not get all protective and cynical every time Ronnie mentioned Tezz. He wanted to get to know his sister better, not scare her away again.

"You've gotten to grips with that thing pretty quickly." He indicated the computer, changing the subject. "Did he show you?"

"Lucinda's mother once told me that she believes teenagers are the most technologically versatile people on the planet," Ronnie stated. "Admittedly she did say that in response to the fact that the last time she saw me I had mastered the controls to the PlayStation Three in ten minutes flat, but I think the point still stands."

"Lucinda's mother sounds like a wise woman."

"Why do I get the impression that you're just saying that because you know it's what I want to hear?" Ronnie turned to him then for the first time in their conversation, and Vert was taken aback by the expectant expression in her eyes. He hadn't meant to come across like that, but it had often been said that he couldn't hide his true feelings very well. It was true he didn't entirely trust this Lucinda Demourney, but he also didn't want to pick a fight with Ronnie over her.

"No reason really," he insisted, trying to cover it up.

"Look, V," Ronnie sighed and switched the computer off altogether. "Whatever you want to say, just say it. I'm heading off tomorrow morning so you may as well spit it out."

"Alright, fine. I just don't think I trust Lucinda, that's all."

"Okay. You have a very short amount of time to explain that one."

"Wait a second, I'm not done. I don't doubt that she's a loyal friend; you wouldn't have brought her here if she wasn't; but I can't help thinking that one of these days you're going to get involved in something you shouldn't because of her. And I don't mean," he quickly added, seeing her face fall, "The stunt biking."

Her head snapped up and her eyes widened. "How do you know...? Tezz. Great."

"Don't blame him, he told me weeks ago that he suspected it. To be honest I was half expecting you to tell me you didn't have a clue what I was on about just then."

Ronnie sighed and looked away. "Well, while you're on a roll you might as well tell me how stupid I am for doing that, too," she said wearily.

Vert looked at her with a sad, sympathetic expression. She must have heard that from a lot of people recently.

"I'm not going to," he assured her. She frowned, and he was quick to explain. "Because how much of a hypocrite would I be for giving you that lecture when I do what I do?

"So… You're okay with it?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know I lost the right to suggest what you can and can't do with your life a long time ago." He shrugged, finding no words to better express himself. "So I'm not going to."

Ronnie's grin was one similar to a kid who had just found out that the Tooth Fairy had left fifteen dollars under the pillow that night. Vert couldn't help but share her happiness; he'd scored major points in her books, which was something he had wanted to achieve for years now. Truthfully, he was uncomfortable with the fact that his little sister was throwing herself off tall objects with nothing but a motorbike to break her fall. Of course he was uncomfortable with that; who wouldn't be? But he knew that he was just going to have to accept it. It was what she wanted to do, so he wasn't going to cause greater upset by advising her against it.

"So wait," a frown crept back into her brow. "What did you mean when you said Luce'll get me involved in something I shouldn't?"

"Oh. I just had an overwhelming feeling when I met her that in ten years' time she'll have been on every major drug that's ever existed. I know what I just said, but that I will not allow you to do."

Ronnie smirked. "She's not going to turn into a drug dealer," she insisted.

Vert smiled back, feeling like his mission had been accomplished; he felt closer to her now than he ever had before. Now, he told himself, just don't screw it up before she goes home.

"Here." He held out a ten dollar note to her. "Go grab some pizza from Zeke's and find out what's going on in Volitov Corner."

She smirked again and pocketed it. "I cannot believe you just said that."

"No, neither can I. Now go; I'll let you know if they move."

"Hey Vert." He turned back to her at her call, eyebrows raised, and was surprised to find her suddenly wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug. He returned it with a chuckle; he had definitely said the right thing, then. She released him, winked, and slid onto the Hornet. He watched her cruise out of the Hub fondly, and smiled to himself as he reanimated the Quantum Computer and prepared to spend the next few minutes staring at the glowing bronze dot in exactly the same place on the display.

He talked for longer than he ever had before. Mikhail threw at him question after question, many of which he could not answer. He was vicious about it at first, barely giving him time to answer each one before another presented itself, angrily and probing. He caught him out on every detail, each time he tried to evade the specifics he simply pressed him for more. But eventually he relented. He understood that there were some things he was never going to know, and began to be satisfied with the vague shell of an answer he was being given. He wanted every possible detail of that shell, but Tezz did not begrudge him that; he owed him more than just this feeble truth.

He told him that his car had taken him to a place far away, from whence he could not communicate. He had stayed there for approximately eight years, before he had been found by those people he had been with in the Diner, and stayed with them ever since. He hadn't tried to come home, he explained, because he honestly didn't quite know how to.

"I was scared," he confessed, painfully aware that he was admitting this for the first time since working it out himself. "I was scared about what our parents might say, what you might say. And I knew that my coming home would yield no answers; I could not divulge the details of my disappearance; so I truly believed I was making the right decision to stay away."

Mikhail pondered this, staring out across the now-darkened desert beneath them. He watched a solitary headlight cruise from one end of it to the other before disappearing beneath the rocks.

"Do you want to know anything else?" Tezz asked when he had been silent for quite some time.

"Just one more. How'd you get that?" He pointed to the thin pink scar that poked its tail end out of Tezz's sweater sleeve. Tezz stared at it, tracing his gaze all the way to where it stopped in the middle of his upper arm, before replying. It was his reminder of Ronnie Wheeler's last visit, and served as a caution that he should never think arrogantly of Krytus ever again.

"A nasty encounter with someone owning a very large sword," he mused, remembering what he could of the incident. Mikhail winced, giving Tezz a glimmer of hope; it was the first time he had expressed any empathy during their conversation.

He took a rapid deep breath in, as if he wasn't sure of what he was about to say. "You know..."

But Tezz never got to hear the piece of wisdom his brother was about to impart, for he stopped short as he heard the distant grumble of a motorcycle engine.

"It's Ronnie," he decided, his ears having accustomed themselves to the drone the Hornet gave out. Mikhail glanced sideways at him.

"Is it now?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Mikhail chuckled. "You're forgetting that I was watching you in that Diner, brother. I think there's more to that magenta girl in your opinion than just a name."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Tezz denied. Which must have been the case; how could Mikhail tell what was going on between him and Ronnie if he didn't even know himself? The younger twin simply chuckled again, and gave Tezz a playful shove with his elbow.

Tezz shoved back, and fairly soon the two boys were engaged in an all-out wrestling match in the dust. Ronnie's sudden arrival blinded Tezz, allowing Mikhail to tackle him around the waist and send them both sprawling on their backs and laughing.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Ronnie said incredulously as she slid her helmet off her head. The twins stood up and dusted themselves off.

"No," Tezz cleared his throat.

"Of course not," Mikhail continued. Ronnie blinked in surprise, before shaking it off and swinging her leg over the saddle beneath her.

"Alright then. I thought you could use some pizza; you guys have been up here for hours." She handed the large square box out to them both, not offering any preference as to who received it. Mikhail was just a split second faster.

"We've not been officially introduced," she smiled and stepped towards him. "Ronnie Wheeler."

"Mikhail Volitov," he shook her offered hand and held on to it, in Tezz's opinion, just a bit longer than was necessary.

"Pleasure." Tezz also wasn't sure he liked the warm smile he gave her... Or the one she gave him in return.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" It took him a fraction of a second to realise that her question was aimed at him, and he followed her towards where her bike was parked some way behind the Splitwire and Mikhail's Mitsubishi. He pretended to ignore the quiet snigger that followed them.

"You two look like you're getting along fine," she observed, slouching against the Hornet's frame. Tezz watched his brother sit back down at the edge, hugging the pizza box to himself, lost in thought. There was clearly as much beneath his playful facade as there was beneath his own.

"It's getting there," he agreed. "What did you want to tell me?"

"Oh, just that I'm gonna head off home first thing tomorrow, so I'll probably not see you before then."

Tezz felt his heart sink. "You don't want to stay for a few days?"

"I think you're busy," she suggested, indicating Mikhail where he sat behind them. Tezz sighed in agreement.

"So I'll see you later," she concluded, once again offering no suggestion as to when "later" might be. He panicked; there were things he had to put right between them first.

"Wait... I have to apologise to you. I had no right to speak to you the way I did this afternoon. I am sorry."

She surprised him by smiling and waving it away. "Forget it," she insisted. "And besides, I'm sure you can find some way of making it up to me."

Tezz frowned, not understanding her meaning.

"How about we race you back to wherever it is you hang out?" Mikhail suddenly appeared between them, making Tezz jump. Ronnie's smile turned into a teasing grin.

"Oh, I don't know. I don't suppose he told you what happened the last time he and I raced."

"I was at a severe disadvantage," Tezz defended. "It was in a crowded city that you are significantly more familiar with than I."

"Please. You know the phrase 'beaten by miles?'" I have never had the chance to use it in context before this."

Mikhail turned to his brother, astonished.

"It was one mile."

"Two and a half, don't deny it."

"So consider this a rematch," Mikhail decided, clearly enjoying himself far too much. "The last one back buys tomorrow's dinner."

"What about your truck?" Tezz assumed that Mikhail intended to ride shotgun in the Splitwire, an event that Tezz was not altogether looking forward to.

"I'll have Spinner come out with Stanford and pick it up later," Ronnie supplied. "Whaddya say, Tezz? Round two?"

Tezz sighed, acknowledging his defeat. "Round two," he agreed.

"Alright. Three, two, one, go!" She turned and practically jumped the distance back to her bike in less time than it had taken the Volitov twins to even register her rapid countdown. Uttering cries of outrage they both turned and sprinted for their appropriate sides of the Splitwire, and were after her down the track in a matter of seconds.

It seemed that Ronnie was unable to accelerate much until reaching the bottom of the steep cliff track, giving Tezz and Mikhail plenty of leeway to catch up with her. The only thing stopping him from overtaking her along the tight hairpin bends was the fact that the road was simply not wide enough to accommodate them both. He wanted to beat her home, not drive her off the road altogether.

"Impressive," Mikhail commented, casting his eyes around the car's interior. Tezz murmured in agreement.

"It would be a challenge to drive."

"No," Tezz snapped, reading his brother's meaning.

"Oh, come on. Just once."

"Mikhail, this vehicle possesses an enormous power," he said cryptically as his eyes drifted to the computer console, and the activation switch for the EMP cannon mounted where the rear seats should have been. "I am not being possessive; I am trying to look out for your safety. Promise me you will never drive it."

"Spoilsport," Mikhail muttered. "Alright, fine, I won't. But that's no excuse for not showing me what she can do."

Tezz grinned; they had reached the flats, and the fun was about to begin.

"With pleasure."

Tezz's grin spread in a determined curve across his face as he threw the Splitwire into third, closely following the soft yellow pool of light in front of him. He snaked behind her a couple of times before pulling out and preparing to slingshot closely around her flank... Until the light went out.

He hissed through his teeth.

"And now I can't see her," he muttered. He eased into fourth for some more speed, all the while staring about them wildly for any fast-moving shadow that could be the Hornet. There were two options: she had already pulled ahead of him so far that there was no hope of his catching up, or he was about to drive straight into her back wheel. The sky was pitch black outside and he was moving too fast for his headlights to be of any use; there was no way to tell.

"Ten o'clock," Mikhail suddenly shouted, pointing to a blurred reflection of lights off to the right. Tezz grinned again, and slammed the gear stick up into fifth.

"On my mark, press that button," he instructed, pointing to the Hub tunnel control switch. At these speeds - well over three hundred Mph - the amount of resistance the Splitwire was putting up was huge. Tezz doubted that he could take even one hand off the wheel for long enough to activate it while keeping them on course and in the lead. Mikhail's finger rested millimetres above it, ready to strike.

"Three... Two..." Tezz counted off the distance from them to the underground doors, adrenaline pumping trough his veins at the prospect that they might actually win this.

"One..."

"Tezz!" Mikhail screamed, twisting in his seat.

"What is it?"

"Look!"

Tezz sought out his wing mirror to tell him what his brother was staring at, and his heart hit the Splitwire's floor. His foot soon followed it, slammed hard down on the brake pedal, and he was out of the door and rolling across the sand before the car had come to an arcing stop; Mikhail must have pulled the handbrake at the same time. As he watched, Ronnie soared through the air above him, the Hornet gone from beneath her, and Tezz watched horrified - the Splitwire had come to a stop slap-bang in the centre of her trajectory. There was no time to communicate this to Mikhail, from whose point of view Ronnie had now disappeared beyond the windshield as she neared. Tezz could do nothing but watch; this was going to be painful.

His expression turned to one of surprise as Ronnie's hands extended in front of her and she landed neatly upside down on the Splitwire's low roof, before springing her elbows and becoming airborne once again. She performed three tight forward somersaults before landing, perfectly stable, on her feet a few meters away. Tezz gaped some more, then ran to her.

"Are you alright?" He shouted.

"Yeah, fine," she sounded just as shocked as Tezz felt, and she was rubbing her shoulder.

"What happened?"

"I don't know; must have hit a boulder or something. The Hornet just stopped dead and threw me over the handlebars." She looked over Tezz's shoulder at where her bike lay in the sand, engine still running, and made her way towards it. Her first few steps were shaky, and he wondered if she was actually okay, or she was just telling him that to get him off her back.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Mikhail, who had finally stopped gawping and climbed out of the Splitwire, must have had the same line of thought. Ronnie only laughed as she bent down to disengage the Hornet's engine.

"Dude, I just flew twenty meters and bounced off a roof; I'm as fine as anyone's gonna be after that." The brothers exchanged a glance. "Now that's funny," Ronnie continued with a frown.

"What is?"

"Usually if you hit something on a bike with enough force to stop you dead, your front wheel is going to be bent somewhat from the experience. Mine... Isn't."

"What does that mean?" Mikhail frowned, but Tezz already knew the answer. Ronnie knew it too, but she ran back along the track her tyres had made just to be sure.

"It means that I didn't hit anything," she called back. "See, that's where I went over, and there's nothing there but sand."

"So what did it?"

"I don't know, and that scares me." She turned to Tezz. "Can you run a diagnostic when we get back?"

"Of course. Are you okay to drive?"

"Yeah, I'll take it slow. That way if it does happen again, I might at least stay in my seat."

"I'll go on ahead and set up." He made his way back to the driver's side, heart only just beginning to slow back to normal from its sudden adrenaline shot. Ronnie nodded and pulled the Hornet back into standing position, eyeing it warily. Mikhail called back to her from the Splitwire's passenger door.

"By the way, we were so going to win."

Ronnie snorted and started her engine. "Yeah right."

**Dun dun duuuhhh… Will peace between the Volitovs really last? Will Mikhail keep his promise? And what the heck just happened with Ronnie's motorbike? Find out in coming chapters…**

**Okay, enough with the cheesy questions to keep you interested. You may have noticed that this chapter's quite a bit longer than usual; that's because I'm going on vacation on Friday and don't know if I'll be able to give you another one before then. I will try, of course, but just in case I don't, you've got a lot to tide you over.**

**I also want to say "I love you too" to **LittleDarling13**. She knows why. If you are in fact not a she, accept my humblest apologies; it's an assumption I was making from your penname.**

**Until next time, folks, whenever next time may be **


	4. Chapter 4

**So hey guys! Sorry about the wait, but I **_**was**_** on vacation, so it's allowed. Um, just a quick thanks to everyone who reviewed after chapter three; I was amazed at the amount that came in, so thanks for your support everyone!**

It soon became painfully obvious to Ronnie that what she was looking for was nowhere to be seen. She roamed the Hub, a frown set deep on her features, searching every nook, cranny and computer system for it, all to no avail. She had hoped she wouldn't have to actually tell anyone - that it was simply somewhere she hadn't thought of looking - but eventually gave up and conceded. She couldn't find it, and that gave her cause for alarm.

Tezz was where he seemed to always be, even at this time of the morning; by the main computer in the Hub's central room. He was reading something; the words were flowing too fast for her to tell what; although his eyes weren't focused on the screen. He was somewhere else entirely, and for once she completely understood why. He saw her coming, however, from the other side of the Hub, and as soon as she was within range he tossed a piece of wood no longer than her hand towards her. She fumbled with it, and only caught it by luck as she flailed.

"What's this now?" she stared at the gnarled cylinder, turning it over in her hands. Flicking it she noticed that it was had a completely different makeup than any tree she had encountered before.

"It is what I pulled out from the back wheel of your bike last night," he reported. She frowned at it and stared again. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that one possible reason for the dent in the wood was high impact between two pieces of metal; it was thick enough to get stuck there without snapping, and therefore very likely the cause for her sudden flight.

"What is it?"

"A piece of wood."

"Ha ha."

"You are right; it is not from around here." Tezz pulled up a diagnostic report on the computer, and she leaned over his shoulder to read it. "My scans indicate that the tree from which this sample originated is not native to this area, or indeed..." He paused and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "This planet."

"Am I going to regret asking where it came from?"

"According to my analysis, Planet Vandal."

"So that would be a yes, then."

"The question is, when was the last time you went to Planet Vandal?"

Ronnie rocked back on her heels, thinking. "The only time I've ever been near it or anything from it was the last time I was here. And I can assure you that a piece of wood was not going to stay stuck in my rear wheel for eight months without drawing attention to itself."

"No, and it did not appear on the diagnostic Sage ran when you arrived, either."

"Which begs the question..."

"When did you pick this up?"

He looked down at her again, his eyebrows slightly raised, and a chill went down her spine as she met his eye.

"Do you know?"

"Not for certain," he stated. "But I do have a theory. Do you recall the last time you were here, the Vandalls infiltrated Earth twice in the space of twenty-four hours?"

"Mmhmm." Of course she recalled; it had been one of the most terrifying and life-changing experiences she had ever been through.

"It would not be hazardous to assume that they have, somehow, retained the technology they used to create their own Storm Shock portal then, and are using it to conduct stealth missions now."

"That's two words I don't like hearing together; Vandalls and Stealth."

"Myself, I had not thought it possible. But that is the only theory I have at the moment."

"And there is no possible alternative?"

"None that do not involve large amounts of speculation regarding actions that are unlikely to have taken place."

"Say what?"

He frowned at her. "Alien invasion is out of the question," he simplified.

"Oh. Then we should be on the lookout for any Vandalls sneaking around."

"Agreed. I should report this to Vert."

"Not now; it's half five in the morning. If they're not about to break down the door, let him sleep."

"Very well."

With the following break in conversation, Tezz seemed to look at her properly for the first time that morning. He ran his eye slowly up and down her body; the scrutiny of it made her feel quite uncomfortable.

"What?"

"I thought you said you were going to leave this morning."

"I was," she shifted on her feet, knowing that she was now going to have to report her missing items. "But I noticed something. Three things, actually. First was that Mikhail has disappeared. I didn't think anything of it to begin with, until I went upstairs and saw the second thing: that his truck is still where Spinner left it last night. Thirdly; and this is the one you're not going to like; the Splitwire's gone."

Tezz froze, and turned slowly to face her with wide, panicked eyes. "No."

"Yes. I don't think I need your IQ to be able to work out the math on this one."

His movements were tense as he brought up a new computer display and began searching for the Splitwire's tracking beacon. From where she was standing, she could see the two ridged scars on his bottom lip from where he had chewed through it the night before. As she watched him, his teeth toyed with it and grated along its surface, threatening to create a third. She put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"I told him," he muttered. She couldn't tell if he was upset or angry. "I specifically told him not to do this."

"Which is probably why he did. Let's face it, what would you have done?"

He spun around and faced her with ferocity in his eyes even more intense than the anger she had seen in Mikhail's back in the Diner the night before.

"We are not the same," he growled, his hands gripping her forearms like vices. "He and I have nothing in common, not anymore."

She stared him down, watching the anger slowly diffuse from his eyes until he let her go and turned away from her.

"I'm sorry." His voice was barely a whisper, as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. She let out a sympathetic sigh and hugged him around the waist from behind; he looked like he needed it.

"When Vert and I were kids," she began, leaning against his back. "We would spend our summer days completely apart from each other. We'd each be out with our own friends, but would both come home at seventeen minutes past five every afternoon. Then, without a word of consultation, we'd get ourselves a glass of milk and a plate of cookies out of the fridge and sit down in front Cartoon Network, and stay there until dinner. This went on for about five years, I think, and we never once discussed it or assumed that the other would continue with the ritual. We just did it, because it's what we both felt like doing."

She straightened up and turned him around so that he was forced to look at her. "You're brothers; you're always going to think the same way. It doesn't make you the same person. Now come here."

She pulled him into a hug which he hesitantly responded to; she could tell he was trying not to cry in front of her.

"I am sorry," he repeated. "I should not have gotten angry with you." He straightened up, forcing her to take her arms down from around his shoulders. "When we were children, Mikhail and I were even more alike than we are now, and not a day went by when we were being mistaken for each other by someone. He found the experience entertaining, whereas I... did not. I had hoped that as we grew older we would also grow apart in looks, but it appears that this has not happened."

"You are two very different people, Tezz," she assured him. "I really don't think anyone's going to mistake you for him anymore."

At her words Tezz sniffled, and the computer behind him began to make regular beeping noises. To Ronnie, it was a signal for the subject to be changed.

"So where is he then?"

Tezz's shoulders dropped as he read the screen.

"Of all places," he complained, "Why did it have to be there?"

Mikhail was tentative with the controls at first, easing his brother's car out of the underground garage slowly and quietly lest anyone should hear and try to stop him. He wanted to do this; he considered it the first real act of rebellion he had committed since his brother's disappearance; and he did not want to be caught. But of course, once he reached the desert...

He punched the radio dial and allowed his grin to split at the steady but powerful guitar riff that erupted from the speakers; Tezz's taste in music had not changed a bit, and of this he wholeheartedly approved.

Then, when he felt safe that he wasn't being followed, he wound both windows down and floored it. The song's lyrics kicked in, sending the grin ever wider as he neared a hundred Mph. He knew the song, and found himself tapping his fingers against the steering wheel along with the beat. Then, as he felt the adrenaline course through his veins at the thrill of the drive, his whole hands became the drums. Enormous power? As much as he hated to admit it, Tezz had most definitely been right about that.

He didn't know exactly why he had taken the car. Maybe it was because he felt like Tezz had essentially been controlling his life ever since he vanished, and disobeying the one specific instruction he had given him was like getting payback for all those years. He was giving himself the power over Tezz for once, rather than living under his shadow.

Or maybe, he thought as he sighed and flicked his hair away from his eyes, he should stop trying to psycho-analyse himself so much. He had taken the car because he, like his brother, loved the speed an engine could generate, and the bronze muscle car was by far the most powerful he had encountered so far. It had been sitting there in the garage practically begging him to take it, daring him to resist. Tezz's warning had simply added fuel to the fire.

Whatever his reasons he didn't care; it was one Hell of a drive.

But it couldn't last forever. Eventually he would have to go back, and soon, before anyone realised it was missing. The song's climax pumped through the speakers, making them pulse with every beat, and the speedometer needle pointed shakily towards the two-fifty mark. He daren't take it to the level Tezz had gone to earlier - simply because he was already fighting the resistance it was putting up and didn't trust himself not to send it over somehow or another - but all the same, as the music coupled with the roar of the engine and struck a chord somewhere deep in his soul, he felt so alive.

The final chords of the song faded away and Mikhail clicked the stereo off, sighing again at the realisation that his fun had to end. He spotted the silhouette of the garage on the barely lightening horizon and turned towards it, allowing the car to slow itself across the sands. Piece by piece his reality began to settle on his shoulders once again, and his mind turned, unbidden, to what he was going to report back to his parents when he eventually returned home. Tezz hadn't told him enough for them to be satisfied, that much he knew, but his other options he didn't particularly like. He could tell them that Tezz had refused to speak to him, or that he was dead. Either way, it involved lying, and meant that Tezz would never have the chance to see them again. However much he despised him, he could not do that to his brother. Not without consulting him first.

His heart was heavy as he began the home straight back to the garage's main doors, so much so that he wasn't really paying attention to the sand in front of him. As a result, the huge swirl of blue that spiralled out of nothing in front of him came as a total shock to his brain, and he didn't register it as dangerous until he was far too close. With a jolt he slammed down every brake he could find in an emergency stop and wrenched the wheel over as hard as he could, but it was already too late. He was going to crash.

Mikhail wrapped his arms around his head and curled into a ball, placing his life in the hands of the seat belt and trusting that it wouldn't let him be thrown across the car when the impact came. The passenger side was face-on to the oncoming wall, so maybe, just maybe, he would survive this...

It was a full minute later before he fully realised that nothing had happened, that he and the car were still in one piece. His shaking arms peeled themselves away from his body, and he peered out from behind them unwillingly, unsure of what he would find.

He wondered if it was possible to pass straight into a comatose state without actually becoming aware of the incident that caused it. He hoped so; it seemed to be the only logical explanation for the fact that he was now deep within the foliage of the strangest and most vibrant jungle he had ever seen or even heard of.

With trembling limbs he popped the car's door and slid out, wrinkling his nose at the slight sulphuric smell that reached it. He gazed around himself, taking in the high-reaching trees, the towering volcano, the strange creatures that flitted through the foliage, with an absentness that made him feel like he was staring at it through a screen, like someone was showing him the photographs from their exotic summer vacation and he didn't quite believe it was real. Or that it could be.

He closed the door with a deep bass thud that echoed through the trees, causing birds, bugs and small critters to scamper away, shrieking, deeper into the jungle. The bass carried on, slowly evolving into a high, clear note that Mikhail knew was not of his own creation. Turning to face the sound, he saw only the first glimpses of a large cavalry of beasts before something impacted with the base of his neck, and though he tried to fight the rapid tunnelling of his vision into nothing, he nonetheless felt himself fall forwards and slip into unconsciousness.

"I can't believe... I told him not to... There is no way..."

Tezz paced back and forth between two anonymous spots on the floor, one arm folded tightly across his body, the other balanced on it at the elbow and covering his mouth with the hand. Ronnie could only imagine what he was feeling, but the shaking of his hands and arms told her enough to get a reasonable idea.

"Hang on, slow down," Ronnie tried to console him from where she stood, now across the Hub from where his pacing had taken him.

"He is on Planet Vandal, Veronica," he jabbed, not even breaking stride. "I cannot simply 'slow down.'"

Ronnie gritted her teeth, having to fight her natural response to snap back at him at his use of her full name. It wasn't her fault, and he should keep that in mind.

"I am aware of that," she muttered, simply wanting to get the last word in.

"I have to go and find him," he declared, although doing nothing to alter the course of his paces. Ronnie crossed the space between them and stood in his way, forcing him to stop and listen to her.

"You can't go by yourself."

"I cannot involve the Battle Force Five in a dangerous rescue mission, the cause of which was entirely my responsibility," he countered.

"So how exactly are you going to get there? Walk?"

She watched him grit his teeth and turn away, knowing that he hadn't thought things through. She knew he would never ask the team for help; his pride simply wouldn't let him.

Something flicked across his mind, giving him an idea, and he turned back to her with a plea in his eyes that she understood instantly without the need for words. She had considered it herself, and while it wasn't the ideal solution, it would be enough to get Mikhail back.

"I still think you should take a full team with you," she argued, her words slow and reluctant. "But since I know you want to get over there as quickly as possible, fine, I'll give you a ride. I'm just warning you though; we're more likely to get ourselves captured than rescue Mikhail."

"I know that," he whispered to himself as she turned back to her bike.

"Now go get changed, and hurry up." She unzipped her leather jacket to reveal the Battle Force Five shock suit she always wore beneath, and then pulled her valuables out of the Hornet's saddle. He sprinted off in the direction of the bedrooms without further fanfare, leaving Ronnie alone to consider what they were about to do. They should be taking a full team. She should go and wake her brother, inform him of what had happened, and ask for his help. But something told her it was better for Tezz's relationship with Mikhail if they went alone. She had a feeling that if they pulled this off, not only would Tezz not have to keep the Battle Force a secret from him anymore, they might finally begin to understand each other. It had worked with her and Vert; the only difference was that the Volitov brothers were a lot more stubborn.

Tezz returned in record time, and she swung onto the Hornet with the spare helmet offered out to him. He dropped a Battle Key onto the Hornet's front and nestled into the helmet, obscuring his nervous expression. She didn't blame him much; she would have been too, she supposed, if she hadn't spent the last few months throwing herself and her bike off tall objects. He settled himself behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist.

"Hold on tight," she instructed as she started the engine. As they set off his grip tightened, until he was quite literally placing his life into her hands.

**Dun-dun-duuuhhh etcetera. Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading, please leave a review with your opinions and suggestions; all that jazz.**

**Um… I should probably let you know that I'm not entirely sure how it's going to go after this point. Well, obviously I have the vague idea, but I'm not so clear on the details. So regular updates are looking unlikely from this point on. (Also I have to go back to school in two weeks, but somehow that's always an excuse for me.) **

**But stick with me guys; it's going to get a lot more exciting! ~ E.C. xx**


	5. Chapter 5

When Mikhail woke again, it was to the smell of something repulsive - and the sight of something even worse. His mind associated his surroundings with the zoo his parents had taken him to as a child; the wooden structures, the scent of unwashed filth, and the animals. The animals were what really put him on edge.

He looked about himself subtly, peeking through slit eyelids, trying not to draw attention to the fact that he was awake. The animal creatures were surrounding him. Many prowled the balustrade of their wooden fortifications, armed with spears and crossbows that occasionally twitched in their hands as they jumped, ready for action, at the slightest flicker of leaves in the forest below. The rest - five at a glance - were huddled together in front of him. Four of them had their attention fixed on the one who was obviously their leader: a great lion with more tribal markings and battle scars than he had ever seen before on any human. It waved its arms in wild gestures, at which those surrounding it cheered their support of Captain Kalus.

Well then, he thought with a smug satisfaction, he knew more about them than they did about him already.

The smugness drained from his expression as the lion turned, and a feral, malicious grin spread across its face as it saw he was awake. The five of them advanced towards him; the lion headed straight ahead while the others - a shark, a crocodile, a gorilla and some kind of crustacean he couldn't quite name - fanned out in a rough semi-circle, cutting off any escape he might otherwise have had.

It was at this point that he took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh, trying to quell the nausea that arose as he fully understood his situation - he was being held captive by some breed of intelligent mutant animals. He began to hope fervently that he was actually lying comatose somewhere back in the Handler Corners desert, and that none of this was real.

"Sub-creature," the lion declared in a gravelly voice that definitely defined it as being male. Mikhail met its gaze with as much hatred behind his eyes as he could muster; if he was going to be kept prisoner, he would by all means make his opinion felt. His vehement stare seemed only to amuse his captors further.

"Where are the rest of the Battle Force Five?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Mikhail growled, attempting to match the deep rumble of the lion's voice. He was trying to keep away the fear, the knowledge that there was no way in the living universe that this... this _thing_... really existed. He was dreaming. He had to be.

But the human mind is incapable of creating images that are not stored somewhere in the subconscious, and he knew that he had definitely never seen anything like this before.

In that case, he was going to be having nightmares for weeks... Assuming he lived long enough.

The lion leaned into Mikhail and growled, a menacing sound that emanated deep within his chest and seemed to boil to the surface unwillingly, as if it didn't really want to be there. The wall of wood behind him seemed to increase in density as he flinched into it to get away from the foul stench of the creature's breath.

"Do not play games with me," he threatened. "I know your face. You have seen the inside of these walls before as my prisoner, and I knew it was no challenge to bring you here again."

"I've never been here before in my life," Mikhail insisted. "And believe me; I have no desire to stay."

"Lies! I never forget the faces of my enemies, especially not those of the Battle Force Five. Now tell me where the others are, and what you were doing sneaking around my home world."

Suddenly, Mikhail felt as if a film had been cleared from his vision as his mind came to the only logical explanation it could, and his confusion fell away. The lion had mistaken him for Tezz.

But then another weight dropped onto his shoulders. That meant that he considered Tezz an enemy, and most likely wanted him dead. Which meant that Mikhail himself now had very little time left to haul butt out of there.

"The Battle Force Five never leave their team members alone," Kalus continued, oblivious to Mikhail's revelation. "Where are they?"

"I am not a member of this Battle Force," Mikhail explained. Maybe if he could convince Kalus that he was not his brother, he could just escape with his life. He understood now why Tezz had been unable to tell him the specific facts about where he had gone nine years ago; he would have kept the truth hidden himself had their roles been reversed. "I don't even know what they are."

"Then why were you driving one of their vehicles?" The lion's voice was low with the knowledge that he had just scored points, and a wry smile crept over his features. Mikhail hit the back of his head against the wall, painfully well aware of the disadvantage the car's presence afforded him. Because I'm an idiot who should have listened to his brother, he thought to himself dryly.

"If you will not tell me where they are, I will simply wait for them to come and rescue you," the lion concluded, pacing away from Mikhail. "Hatch, gain access to the Sentient vehicle. With this weapon, we can use their own strengths against them."

"Yes, my Captain," the crustacean creature grovelled at the lion's feet for a moment before trotting off to Tezz's car and examining it, scraping at its mandibles with a clawed appendage. It was this thing that really convinced Mikhail that he wasn't dreaming the whole experience; there was no way that his own imagination could have come up with something as hideous and other-worldly as that.

Watching the crustacean for a while proved that his brother's car was in no real danger of being compromised, so Mikhail turned his attention to his escape. It wasn't looking likely; his hands were bound above his head so tightly that he feared he would soon loose circulation to his fingers, and tied to a wooden structure that in itself was far too sturdy for him to even stand a chance of denting. His feet, although not bound to anything, were tied together in such a way that he was most likely to fall flat on his face the moment he tried to move, thereby attracting their attention and rendering his efforts useless. No, he was going to have to wait it out. Like the lion creature had said, Tezz would come for him eventually.

As soon as he realised he was even missing. And then worked out where he was.

Mikhail hit his head against the wall again; Tezz would never find him in time. He was so fantastically stupid, he was probably setting records - he should never have taken the car. Tezz had told him not to, warned him of the enormous power the vehicle possessed, but what had he gone and done? He hadn't even considered the fact that by 'enormous power,' Tezz had actually meant 'able to open doorways to other planets.'

He tried to console himself with the fact that he now had a decent explanation for why Tezz had stayed away all those years. It didn't work quite as well as he'd hoped.

It was at seven AM that Sage aroused herself from her dormant state. She did this habitually, liking to be 'up and about' - to use the human expression - before any of the Battle Force Five. She enjoyed having time to herself in the quiet hours, and although she was usually met with the sight of Tezz at one of the Hub's workstations, she knew she would not be disturbed by him; of all the humans she had encountered, he seemed to be the least inclined towards folly conversation.

On this particular morning; a rather dewy Thursday in October; there was no sign of him. She did not think this strange, until she remembered Ronnie Wheeler's promise to be leaving early and his evident fondness for her. With a slight frown she explored the Hub to a greater extent, and was satisfied when she saw the Splitwire, as well as the Hornet, gone from its usual station. He had left to see her off, then. That made sense.

She predicted that she had approximately two and a half hours before the Battle Force Five began to surface and require activity, so busied herself with a task that had been grating at her since she had taken the idea into her head: to search the Multiverse remotely for signs of any Red Sentient respawn chambers. It was a complex task; she did not doubt that her twin had taken enormous precautions to keep them hidden from the view of even the most advanced sensors, and her many previous efforts had proven fruitless. She had predicted as much when she began, but was now resolved to attempt a much more general search for Sentient technology. This way, she hoped to bypass Krytus' blocks and protectors, and at the same time she could identify some more Blue Sentient relics that the Battle Force Five could then occupy themselves with tracking down and retrieving for her to study. So whether she actually found the respawn chambers or not, her searching would not prove worthless.

The thought of her twin brought her mind back to Tezz; word had not failed to reach her of his own brother's sudden arrival, but all she had heard were whispered rumours between the other team members, and she thought it impolite to enquire further. She wondered if they had gotten along, if he had revealed the Battle Force Five to him, and where this brother was now. He certainly had not stayed in the Hub overnight, that much she knew. It was strange to think of the team's lives outside of their world; they all spoke so little of them, and from time to time Sage even forgot that they had any other lives at all. It was a ridiculous thing to assume, she knew, and upon reflection remembered hearing the Cortez brothers discussing only the day before that a visit to their grandmother was overdue... Or far too hasty, depending on which opinion one observed. Sage smiled at the recollection of Spinner's steadfast assurances to Sherman that grandma could easily do without them a while longer.

A soft trilling brought her back to her task, and she realised with some shock that twenty minutes had gone by since she initiated the scans. It was unlike her to allow her mind to wonder; she would have to run self-diagnostics later to assess it. But the trilling signalled that her scans had found something, and excitement built up within her at the prospect of what it might be. The signal homed in on none other than Planet Vandal, which was not at all surprising bearing in mind their vehicles' Sentient-based construction. She almost overlooked it entirely; she knew how much the team despised visiting that planet; until one blip on the screen caught her eye amongst all the others. It was a solitary blip, which in itself was strange considering that all Vandals travelled through their jungle in groups of at least two. But what really caused her to feel apprehensive was the fact that the computer was in the process of recognising the blip, and as she watched it morphed from its nondescript pale blue to a distinct and unmistakable magenta. A minute label popped up next to it, confirming her fears: The Hornet. Ronnie was on Planet Vandal.

Sage rushed to the Battle Key storehouse, preferring it to have been a deliberate act than an accidental one, but didn't even need to examine it closely; it was already wide open, and a blatant gap present where the Planet Vandal Key should have been.

She was now faced with a dilemma. Should she wake Vert and the rest of the Battle Force Five immediately, and send them off in search without knowing why they were going or what they would encounter? Or should she at least attempt to gather more information, try to come up with some idea as to why Ronnie would have taken a Key and visited Vandal. Ronnie was Vert's sister; he would want to find her and bring her back out of harm as quickly as possible. But he would also want to know what he was up against so as to better prepare the team.

The computer made the decision for her, for as she returned to it she found that it had identified another blip amongst the dozens that swarmed the Vandal stronghold. This one, it appeared, was the Splitwire, and Sage could judge without doubt that it had been captured by the Vandals. So Ronnie had taken the Battle Key to go and rescue Tezz, without feeling the need of the Battle Force Five's assistance. How foolish, how arrogant she was to think that she could take on the entire Vandal species alone. Not when she had such help at her very beck and call.

Well, at least now she had a plausible conclusion as to why Ronnie had departed for Planet Vandal. Why Tezz was there in the first place she had no idea, but thought that the combined minds of all seven remaining team members could reach an answer much more effectively than she could, if an answer was even needed at all; Tezz would certainly explain everything upon his return. He would have to.

Struggling to clear the fuzziness from his vision and his mind, Vert sat up in bed and fought to make out the words coming through his intercom from Sage. His half-awake brain took in the time; seven thirty. That meant something bad was up.

"...been captured and taken prisoner by Vandalls. I believe that Ronnie has taken a Battle Key and gone in pursuit of him."

At the mention of his sister's name, he sat bolt upright and tuned in completely, sleep forgotten.

"I'm on my way," he assured Sage, swinging his legs off the bed and pulling off his pyjamas. He dressed in record time, and was still shrugging his arms into his Battle Suit as he rounded the corner into the Hub's main control room at a half-run to greet the Sentient.

"What's going on?"

"I believe," Sage repeated, showing him her computer screen, "that your sister is currently attempting to rescue Tezz from the Vandal stronghold."

Vert blinked uncomprehendingly at her. With a sigh she explained her findings and theories, and it was a good ten minutes later that with a grave face he hit the Hub's central intercom switch and summoned his team.

"Battle Force Five, wake up. We have a situation. Be ready for action in the control room in ten minutes."

One by one, the team made their ways into the circle of light around the computer, each bleary-eyed and not quite as well presented as they would usually have liked. The last to join them was, unsurprisingly, Stanford, who complained bitterly about being woken up at such an inconsiderate hour before Agura slapped him on the back of the head.

"Dude, what's going on?" Zoom asked, tightening his headband.

"Can someone go and get Mikhail? He's going to have to hear this too."

"He's not here boss," AJ informed him. Of all the team, he seemed the most like his usual cheery, wide awake self. Vert frowned at his news. "His door was open when I went past it and I stuck my head in, but he was gone. I don't think he even stayed the night."

Vert shared a glance with Sage; this certainly put a new perspective on things.

"Zoom, run up top and see if his truck's still there." As the scout scampered off, Vert began his explanations. "Sage found out this morning that both Tezz and my sister are somewhere on Planet Vandal..." he paused as Stanford reminded them all of his particular feelings towards that specific location.

"It appears that Tezz has been captured by Vandals, and Ronnie left with a Battle Key alone to try and rescue him."

"That doesn't sound like something Ronnie would do at all," Sherman mused.

"Exactly," Vert agreed.

"Well maybe the two of them went off for some alone time and..." Stanford trailed off under the death glare Vert shot him. The thought had crossed his mind, although if it proved to be true he would kill Tezz. Whether for putting Ronnie in danger or for making moves on his sister he didn't know, but he would definitely kill him. He did have one theory that he preferred, but he had to hear Zoom's report before announcing it. He didn't have to wait long.

"Vert? Mikhail's truck's still up here where we left it last night. Wherever he went, he planned on coming back."

"Thanks Zoom."

"Hang on," Spinner interrupted, his mind working quickly. "What if Mikhail took the Splitwire, somehow ended up on Vandal, and then Tezz persuaded Ronnie to take him to bring him back? Because going off alone is a very Tezz thing to do."

"What, and Mikhail just teleported onto Vandal?" Stanford sarcastically challenged.

"Have you got anything better?"

"If you recall the events of eight months ago," Sage interrupted, "You will be aware that the Vandalls were experimenting with their own form of Storm Shock portal technology. It is plausible that Mikhail drove unknowingly through one of their portals, in much the same way that Ronnie did at the time."

"We're mounting a rescue," Vert concluded, satisfied that everyone knew enough to go on. "Agura, we'll need your tracking abilities on this one, and Buster we'll need some muscle. The rest of you are on standby in case it gets ugly. Mount up everyone; we're leaving now."

"Vert," Agura's voice penetrated the still silence as the four of them were spat out of the Hub's tunnels onto the sands. "Are you okay to do this?"

"I'm fine," he lied. In truth he felt sick. Ronnie was in danger, and while he had no doubts that she could take care of herself, he didn't know to what lengths she would go to keep Tezz from harm. And with Mikhail now thrown into the mix, there was just no way he could predict what lengths Tezz would go to either. He hated being unable to at least formulate a basic idea of what he could expect, and it was making him nauseous. Ronnie was his sister, his only sister. He would never forgive Tezz for persuading her to go with him alone - Spinner had been right, the only way she would even have considered it was if he had played her the right cards. She would do anything for him; he could see that, better probably than she could; even if it meant causing herself harm.

He just hoped that they would get there in time.

**Well oops. This chapter's a bit of a filler, I know; I promise more Tezz and Ronnie in the next one. Whenever I get around to that.**

***ahem* Yes, it's rather clear that I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately. I love long words; they're fun.**

**Anywhoo, thanks for the reviews from the last chapter, and keep 'em coming! It really does help me knowing that you guys out there actually, y'know, like this stuff.**

**Also hi to **Chrisii**,** **who I believe is new here. 'Sup.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Before we begin, sorry and stuff that this one took so long; I went back to school, what can I say? Also, I'd like to answer a question made by a Guest reader, Maria: No, there isn't a sequel to this, and there probably won't be. The ending I have planned seems to me like a nice place to leave it, and I feel like I'd be pushing a little too hard if I tried for a trilogy in this particular universe. But it's not finished yet, so bear with me **

**So read on and enjoy! **

Ronnie drove the Hornet at breakneck speed across the Handler Corners desert, her body twisting with it as she made each turn. Behind her, Tezz felt clumsy and malpracticed, but it wasn't his greatest concern; the fact that he had never ridden a motorbike before was more obvious in the fear surfacing at just how fast they were actually going. It probably wasn't anything more than what he regularly achieved in the Splitwire, but somehow being out in the open air made it a completely different experience. He felt like if he loosened his grip around her waist even so much as a fraction, he would go flying out into the night. The saddle's not being built for two people made the feeling even worse, and twice Ronnie was forced to tell him to let go a bit before she lost the ability to breathe.

Or was he so scared because he didn't know if they would get to Mikhail in time? That was certainly one reason for his grip being so tight; he was trying to stop his hands from shaking. He still wasn't succeeding.

"Alright, we're nearing the portal site," Ronnie's voice was crisp and clear through the intercom in his borrowed helmet. "Look, I know you're worried," she continued, "but I swear, if you keep crushing me like that I'm going to let you off right here."

"Sorry," he muttered, for the third time in five minutes. He didn't relax his grip, though.

"You ready?"

As ready as I'll ever be, he thought dryly. "Ready," was all he said, and none too convincingly at that, but she went with it anyway. The Battle Key shot out from the Hornet's front, creating the magnificent blue rift in the space before them. Ronnie didn't even remotely slow down, but headed straight into its swirling depths as if she'd done it a hundred times before.

"We need to find some high ground," he advised her as soon as they had touched down on the other side. Passing through the portal had gone a long way towards calming his nerves; instead of pressing himself as close to her as he could, he suddenly felt confident enough to lean back slightly and take in the jungle around them as it soared past. He had been mistaken; she was going much faster than he usually did. Suddenly he began to wonder if he was going to regret asking the stunt cyclist for a ride.

Without any warning she took a hard right turn, nearly throwing him off the saddle in the process, and again as she forced the Hornet up an incline steeper than was probably recommended. He saw the logic of it, however; the hill had already been cleared of major foliage, presumably by one of the native creatures taking a sudden tumble, and so the bike had relatively little to break through. They emerged onto a flat rock surface that gave them only a few meters of stopping time before they would once again meet with the trees; Tezz's helmet connected with hers with a hollow thwack.

She tapped his arms, indicating that he needed to get off first, and shakily he unwound his fingers from one another and slid gracelessly off the Hornet's back end, having to bounce up and down on his knees a few times to restore his legs to their proper working order. Ronnie smirked at him but otherwise made no comment.

Without words she set about scanning for the Splitwire's tracking beacon, leaving Tezz to stare at her as she leant against the saddle, upper body angled towards the computer screen, head bent down over it. He marvelled at how willingly she had helped him, how little reasoning it had taken to persuade her to be his chaperone into what was for her completely unknown territory. He knew she held the same opinions that Vert did: the Battle Force Five was a team, and so every member had a duty to protect and defend the others. He knew she knew that they should have asked for backup from the team. He knew that she did not want to be out here alone. And yet, here she was; he wondered what he possibly could have said to make her go back on everything she knew and believed in just to help him. For a fleeting moment he wondered if she was doing it because it was him who had asked, but immediately he knew that was a ridiculous and arrogant assumption to make. And anyway, even if there was anything about him that made her feel some sense of loyalty towards him, she already had a... boyfriend? He hated that word. Person of interest, then. He'd heard it from Lucinda Demourney, her best friend, the day before. She had a "thing" for Tommy Saunders, whoever he was. The question had been gnawing at him ever since, despite his best efforts to ignore it and concentrate on Mikhail instead. To be honest that hadn't been difficult, but still ever-present had been the thought that somewhere back in the real world of Kansas City, Veronica Wheeler had a thing for someone.

So why the Hell did it bother him so much that the someone wasn't him?

He shook his head abruptly and paced the little rock clearing, trying to occupy his mind with scouting out their immediate surroundings. Thinking such thoughts as those was absurdly unscientific, and he was shocked at himself for it. He did not, in the words of Lucinda, have a thing for...

There was no way he had a...

He did NOT have a thing...

He growled to himself, picked up a small rock, and hurled it as hard as he could off over the edge of the steep cliff he had suddenly discovered they were standing on. The sentence was so untrue he couldn't even finish it in his mind. He did have a thing for Ronnie Wheeler; there was no other way of putting it.

"You okay over there?" Ronnie called from her perch behind him. He didn't answer; he could feel his face burning from being caught thinking such things about her, and didn't trust his voice enough not to give himself away completely. She appeared at his elbow nonetheless, scan apparently either complete or running under time.

"I was about to ask if you'd found anything, but..." she trailed off, forcing Tezz to actually pay attention to his surroundings for the first time since they'd arrived in them. He followed her stare over the trees, and realised that throughout the entirety of his inner monologue he had been staring straight into the heart of the Vandal camp, roughly a hundred and fifty metres directly below them. He blinked at his own sudden idiocy.

Then he noticed Mikhail.

First he saw the Splitwire, actually, parked some hundred or so feet from the stronghold's entrance and surrounded by curious Vandals. Hatch danced before it, waving his magic staff and uttering words that Tezz couldn't make out from his distance but was fairly sure made no sense in any language ever created. He almost laughed at the situation; there was no way the crustacean was getting into the Splitwire that way.

He only found his brother when beside him Ronnie sucked in a breath, causing him to change his focus so that it followed her gaze to a different part of the stronghold. Then he saw the tall wooden frame, built into the side of the encampment's far wall. He saw the seven guards that patrolled it, and he saw his brother trussed up against it like the proverbial roasting chicken. He clenched his fists as anger consumed him; Ronnie put a hand on his arm and glanced up at him, but he ignored her concern. He had allowed this to happen. He should have told Mikhail everything, kept no secrets from him, ever since the moment he had arrived in Handler Corners. But he hadn't done that; some stupid sense of pride had forbidden him; and now his brother was paying the price.

"I have to get down there," he stated, and moved forwards without really thinking. Ronnie's grip tightened, holding him back.

"Wait a minute, Tezz; there are far too many of them. We need a plan here."

"We cannot wait..."

"If we jump the gun now all three of us will end up dead. Is that what you want?"

"All of this is my fault," he spat, blinking hard to dispel the tears that surfaced at the vocalisation of this reality. Ronnie gave his arm a hard tug, forcing him to turn away from the sight below and look her in the eye.

"We will get him back," she promised, and he could see the genuine sincerity emanating from her emerald eyes. "I swear, we will get him back, but first we need to think. There are too many of them for us to take on by ourselves."

Tezz nodded slowly, forcing himself to calm down and see the reason in her words. What was he thinking, just rushing in like that? There wasn't even a conceivable way down the cliff; what wasn't bare vertical rock was covered in dense foliage and those strange trees that seem to grow anywhere. He pulled out of Ronnie's grip and stalked away from the cliff edge.

"We will have to wait for nightfall," he stated, trying to kick his brain back into a logical train of thought.

"You sure? It's only just day."

"On Earth, yes, but here the sun has been getting lower ever since we arrived. I believe we have three, maybe four hours to wait."

"Alright then. You have any ideas how we're going to get down there?"

"Not at the moment. Have you?"

"One." Ronnie's eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into a grin. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

One of the things Ronnie hated the most was the long monotony of waiting. Sure, she had plenty to do; run simulations for the plans of infiltration she kept coming up with, for example; but this was frustrating work, for every time she tried something new her data pad shot it down. Or, more accurately, it informed her that one or both of them would end up getting captured or killed before even reaching Mikhail. She didn't see a way they could pull it off. Why had she allowed Tezz to lead her into this alone? He hadn't even had to ask; she'd practically had the idea herself. It was reckless. And now they were going to pay for it with their lives.

The sun was indeed setting below the trees, casting a cold gloom about the pair as they sat, leaning against the Hornet, both focused on their own thoughts. Not a word had passed between them for hours. Ronnie questioned the logic of staging their attack at night, when it would be pitch-black and the Vandals would have the considerable advantage of knowing the ins and outs of their own stronghold. They wouldn't stand a chance, for even if they did manage to grab Mikhail and the Splitwire, they wouldn't be able to force their way out again. It was a fool's errand; she should have informed the rest of the team.

"Can I ask you a question?" Tezz suddenly voiced across the air between them.

"Mmhmm," she confirmed. For some reason she dreaded his next words.

"Who is Tommy Saunders?"

She had been dreading him bringing that up since Lucinda had let slip the information in the first place. She feared his further inquiry, not because it was too personal an issue for her to discuss but because it would involve her examining the feelings she harboured for Tezz himself. She had avoided doing that so far, and had little desire to start now.

She focused on her data pad for a few seconds more, unable to prevent a sigh from escaping her as she considered what her response should be. Asking the grounds for his interests seemed an aggressive move this early in the discussion, but at the same time it was the first thing that came to mind.

"Why?" she settled upon. It was an open-ended question, and it implied nothing towards what she actually wanted to know. He could take it and respond in whichever way he wanted to.

He shrugged, refusing to meet her gaze. "Curiosity," was all he supplied.

"He's just a friend," she assured him quickly, and immediately wondered why she was in such a rush to make that clear. She paused again, searching for the best way to continue; God, she was going to kill Lucinda when she next saw her!

"His dad owns the restaurant supplies company my mom gets stuff from, so that's why I see him so often. He's a nice guy, and yeah I suppose we're pretty good friends, but that's it. There's nothing like... that... going on."

Tezz stared intently at the last couple of centimetres of the Vandal sun as it peeked over the treetops, arms folded tightly around his knees. "Why not?" he asked, catching her eye for a split second before realising she was watching him already.

"Because we have nothing in common," she said with another sigh. "He's great and all, but he plays the trombone and writes poetry and enters creative writing contests. I'm a stunt cycling mechanic. And while he's interested in all that, I have a feeling he's just being polite; our conversations are often enormously one-sided."

Whatever she'd said made Tezz happy; the sadness behind his eyes dissolved and was replaced with a smile that was very real despite the fact that it didn't quite reach his mouth. For some reason, she smiled too; she didn't tell him that the main reason she'd deliberately kept Tommy at a distance, despite his clumsy advances, was because she was waiting to see how things would play out with Tezz. His eyes flickered to hers again but this time he didn't look away. They remained like that for some minutes, neither saying anything, seeing whole new worlds in each other's eyes.

The sudden decline in temperature told Ronnie that the sun had fully descended beneath the curve of the planet.

"We should get going," she whispered, for some reason feeling that any unnecessary noise would give away their position. She stood, her limbs popping where she hadn't moved them for so many hours, and looked down again towards the Vandal stronghold. It seemed even further down than before.

"So what is your plan?" Tezz asked, just as quietly.

"Every simulation I ran turned out bad for the three of us. I guess we'll just have to drop in and see how far our surprise goes."

He smiled at her lack of scientific precision. "Get me as close to Mikhail as you can, then make sure we have a clear path to the Splitwire. Once we are inside we should have a good enough chance."

"What about getting out again?"

This time he wasn't so quick to answer. He looked down at her with a sad expression that once again conveyed everything he meant before he'd even opened his mouth.

"I had not thought that far ahead," he admitted, leaving the sour truth unspoken: because he didn't think they would survive long enough to get there.

She nodded once, strangely at peace with the idea that they were going to their deaths. They could easily have gone home and returned with backup from the Battle Force Five, but she knew that Tezz needed to get Mikhail out of there as soon as possible. If they had even the slightest chance of success they should take it; after all, an eighty per cent chance of defeat was still a twenty per cent chance of victory.

She flashed him a quick smile before turning and swinging onto the Hornet.

"Wait... When you said 'drop in,' you were not being serious, were you?"

She grinned with malice and threw the Hornet's headlights onto full beam. "Oh yes," she stated pleasantly as he climbed on behind her. "Deadly serious."

The mutant creatures lit firebrands as night began to fall and posted them up at regular intervals across their camp. The flickering lights played with Mikhail's subconscious and haunted even the meagre snatches of sleep he was able to grasp, and their shadows taunted his imagination in his waking moments. He could no longer feel the tips of his fingers thanks to the ropes binding his hands, and lacked the strength to stand upright properly anymore. It had been, by his reckoning, twenty four hours since his last meal. He had never gone so long without food before; yes, he had spent the last few months scouring unknown land for Tezz, but that by no means made him a survivalist. He was cold, too, for as soon as the sun had set all warmth seemed to seep out of the air, and his shivers intermingled with his trembles of fear. It had been too long now; Tezz wasn't coming for him.

But why not? Did he really not think him important enough to warrant rescuing? He couldn't bear the thought. Tezz had said that he had never meant to disappear the way he did, that his family had always meant so much to him... Was it the same force that prevented Tezz from explaining the reasons for his disappearance that kept him from coming out for him now? That couldn't be the case; Mikhail was quite obviously aware of this strange world. Or maybe that was it. Maybe because he knew, they were leaving him out there to die.

A tear trickled down his face at the prospect. Would Tezz do that to him? Keeping knowledge from him was one thing, but this... He just didn't know. He didn't know his brother well enough anymore to make that judgement. He closed his eyes and allowed sleep to envelope him again, knowing full well that it would only last a minute at most.

He thought he was dreaming the roar of an engine start up somewhere in the distance. The camp was quiet, and the mutants on patrol had heard it too, for they stopped their prowling to listen. One ran for the buildings behind Mikhail, presumably to wake their leader. He recognised the sound. He had last heard it back in Handler Corners, on the top of the cliffs, when Tezz had identified it as Ronnie. Hope rose within him; they were coming for him after all.

With a whoop of joy and the pained growl an engine makes when it has nothing to resist against, the sleek purple bike catapulted from a ledge high above the camp and, blinding everyone below, began its rapid descent into the depths of enemy territory.

**I always feel compelled to chuckle in an evil manner whenever I finish a chapter. I have no idea why. **

**So this chapter ends on a bit of a dark note, and while I don't apologise for that I am sorry because I'll probably leave you hanging for quite a while. Because I'm mean like that and have little free time at the moment. **

**I also want to torture you all by saying that I actually wrote Ronnie and Tezz a kiss scene for that bit at the end there, but didn't include it because it didn't really tie in with how I want their relationship to progress. Since I know some of you have been wondering about that, there you go. **

**If you all hate me after this one, I understand; leave me a review to let me know! ~ E.C. xx**


	7. Chapter 7

**You know what; I think I'm getting better at this now. Usual thanks to **_Chrisii_** and **_Melosa_** for reviewing, and I'm sure there was someone else too but I may well be making that up… Ah well, enjoy chapter seven ladies and gents! **

"But it is approximately one hundred and fifty meters below us," Tezz cried, "Vertically!"

"I know," Ronnie's sweet smile was clear in the tone of her voice. "And if you and Sage fixed the Hornet's wheel join properly, we should be perfectly fine."

"Should be?"

"Yeah. Should. I'm not guaranteeing anything of course."

Suddenly Tezz didn't think that this was the best idea either of them had come up with all day. But it was too late; Ronnie had already started the engine and set the Hornet up for a brief run at the edge.

"If it makes you feel any better," she shouted over the noise despite the clarity of their com system, "I do this on a daily basis."

"If anything, that makes me feel worse," he responded. He thought he heard her laugh but couldn't be sure, and only had enough time to grip her waist with all his strength before the rock sped out from beneath them and sent them far too suddenly into the open air. Ronnie cheered with adrenaline as the Hornet's engine whined in complaint. He merely squinted his eyes shut and braced for impact.

The bike's wheels landed with a bounce that sent them another foot or so back up, the connection sending a jarring pain up Tezz's spine. He desperately hoped it wasn't anything permanent; that would put them at an even greater disadvantage. There were Vandals all around them, dozens running in from the safe confines of their stronghold as the alarm was sounded at the unwelcome visitors. He ignored them for the most part, knowing that Ronnie was able to take out enough of them to clear a path to Mikhail. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't worry about facing the entire Vandal camp alone; he'd managed to escape from it before, after all; but this time was different. This time he had his brother to think about, and while he didn't really care what damage befell himself, he was not about to allow Mikhail to suffer any further on his account.

The Hornet's deep pink laser cannons carved into the rushing Vandals as Ronnie sped directly towards the wooden structure against which Mikhail was tied. Tezz watched it approach over her shoulder, noting with muted amusement how astonished his twin was to see them. Then Ronnie banked hard to the right, almost throwing him off the saddle for the second time that day. He realised a fraction of a second too late that this was his cue to dismount, and as a result his jump was awkward and lacked precise aim. He landed inches from the structure, rolled, and sprang to his feet.

"Untie him," Ronnie ordered, "and I'll make sure you can get to the Splitwire. You're going to have to run for it though."

"I'm not sure he can," Tezz confessed, taking in his brother's weakened state.

"Just get him there," she almost shouted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grimian go careering straight towards her, sending the Hornet's minute frame spiralling out of control. He forced himself not to worry; Ronnie was a good rider. She would be fine.

He jumped, grabbed hold of the highest wooden beam, and heaved himself up using only the strength of his arms. It was much harder than Zoom frequently made it look. Mikhail gazed up at him vacantly, only semi-conscious, and Tezz ground his teeth together in anger and frustration.

The intricate knots proved tricky to untie, and three times Tezz was forced to stop and use his electromagnetic glove to redirect a Vandal projectile that would have taken his or Ronnie's head off if allowed to reach its target. He was acutely aware that he was taking far longer than was necessary to untie Mikhail's bonds.

"Hurry the Hell up!" Ronnie shouted; Tezz made no response but redoubled his efforts with the rope. Finally, after much cursing and tugging it came loose, and Mikhail stifled a scream as his stiff arms dropped back by his sides. Tezz quickly jumped to the ground and caught his brother, preventing him from toppling over. The bonds securing his feet thankfully proved significantly easier to remove.

"Are you alright?" Tezz could tell Mikhail was far from it, yet the question seemed appropriate, even under the present circumstances. The younger twin nodded wearily and steadied himself on his own feet.

"I'm fine," he lied.

"Ronnie, I have him."

"I can't get to you." Her voice was pained, and looking over Tezz saw that she was completely surrounded. Surrounded but still moving, still putting up a fight. "Just go; I think I've got them all distracted over here."

"I will be right with you."

He slipped against the wall, keeping to the shadows, pulling Mikhail behind him and forcing him to stop suddenly whenever another Vandal looked likely to cross their path and force them back. He knew he should at least try and go easy on him, but there was an emotion building up that felt too much like anger for Tezz to dwell on him for long. He didn't understand this sudden sensation, and neither could he explain what it would lead him to do, but right now he knew he had to get Mikhail into the Splitwire and out of the Vandal camp. That was all that mattered now, and nothing else.

"I can't get to you," Ronnie tried to keep the panic from her voice as she said it but had a feeling she didn't succeed. "Just go; I think I've got them all distracted over here." And true enough, at least fifteen Vandalls were slowly closing in on her, grins on their freakish faces that she was really starting to despise.

"I will be right with you," Tezz promised. She suppressed a harrumph; it was his fault she was here in the first place.

She had to keep moving. If she stopped they would swarm her, and then she would be done for. She briefly wondered whether or not they would keep her alive in order to lure the rest of the team in. She doubted it; they would only need one of them for that.

She pulled the Hornet up onto a Vandal's upturned vehicle and sped over it, using the obstacle to get away from the oncoming mutants. They were on her again in moments, but it was enough; she was now far enough away from them to use her cannons. And use them she did. The trigger offered no resistance as she pulled down on it, as if glad to be assisting in her escape. She aimed the Hornet in the general direction of the Stronghold's doors and just drove, making tight adjustments whenever one of her victims fell and blocked her way. It was a tactic that had proven to work extremely well in the past.

Then the sounds of shouting reached her through the com system. The Volitovs were arguing with each other in short clipped Russian, and she heard muffled sounds of struggling over the general hubbub going on around her. She tried to see what on Earth they were doing, but she was facing the wrong way and couldn't crane her head for long enough to look. Then the sound of a slamming door, and then the Splitwire was driving alongside. They were almost at the gates now.

"Ronnie," came the weary, terrified voice. It was Mikhail. Why was he driving the Splitwire?

"What is it? Where's Tezz?" She fully expected to hear his voice next, confirming that he was actually in the car alongside his brother, but she didn't. Mikhail said nothing for some seconds, and the Splitwire's EMP cannon rose from its chassis and charged. The blast blew a small hole in the Stronghold's gates, despite there being no metal in them; the force of the energy directed at them from such close range was more than enough to do the job. Ronnie sailed through first, and as a result there was nothing she could do against Mikhail's next words.

"They got him."

Three syllables. That was all it took to send spears of ice shooting through the centre of her very soul.

"WHAT?!"

He didn't even see her fist coming. All he knew was her roared shout, and then he was lying flat on his back in the grass, a blunt pain sprouting along his jaw. He didn't even bother getting up; he was far too tired, and she would most likely only hit him down again.

Ronnie, for her part, was furious. Furious and a very short distance away from crying. She sincerely hoped that Mikhail gave her enough reason to stay as angry as she was, because she knew that as soon as she let it go she would dissolve. It wasn't fair, and she wanted answers.

"Why did you leave him behind?" She grabbed the collar of his jacket - a jacket that looked awfully similar to Tezz's civilian clothes now that she thought about it - and hauled him to his feet. He didn't stay there with any particular confidence, and she had a feeling that he would fall over again whether she punched him or not. So she punched him again. It was incredibly satisfying and, in her opinion, completely justified.

"They grabbed him, and I was already in the car. He told me to go without him; they would have gotten me too otherwise, and then you would have come back for us and they would have captured you, too."

"And he communicated all this to you at the time, did he?"

"Yes, actually. It was a very rushed and one-sided conversation, and I didn't exactly have the strength or position to argue."

He was back on his feet now, somewhat steadier than before, and watching her with a wariness that she didn't trust. But then again, she had just punched him twice. He was allowed to be wary, she supposed.

Mikhail, on the other hand, was finding her treatment of him entirely unjustified. He was feeling just as bad as she was about having to leave Tezz behind... Okay, no, he probably wasn't. He was being strangely cold-hearted about it all, and she had a crush on him. It hadn't taken him more than three seconds to work that one out. But her feelings for his brother aside, that gave her no legitimate reason to punch him in the face. Twice.

She stalked away from him, fuming. They were standing in a small clearing between the trees that was so poorly concealed the only thing that was preventing the Vandals from finding them was the fact that they were assuming the pair would not have been so foolish to hide in it. Ronnie could see them driving past at breakneck speeds through only two layers of foliage, and if that wasn't enough, Mikhail's malpracticed driving had left a trail of squashed branches that any idiot could follow. They had minutes at the most to get out of there, but she refused to go without coming up with a rescue plan. Because they were rescuing him, damnit; she cared far more about Tezz's life than she did about Mikhail's, that was for certain.

"What happened?"

"I just told you what happened."

"Right then. So we can guess that they've tied him up in the same place they had you. We're going back in to get him, by the way, just in case you hadn't come to that conclusion yourself yet."

"No."

Ronnie whirled and stared at him, disbelief meeting with disgust in her eyes and throwing themselves at him full force.

"I am not going back in there. And you can hit me all the times you like; one more and I'll probably be unconscious. I am not going through that again."

"I cannot believe you," she hissed.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be tied to a post for an uncountable amount of hours, without food, water or even something to lean on? I didn't think you would. Forgive me if I have no desire to put myself in even any remote danger of it happening again." He turned away from her and leaned against the Splitwire. He felt drained, and he really wanted to go home. Hell, Earth in general would be great at this point.

"How can you say that?" Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper, and he turned out of sheer curiosity as to why she wasn't shouting at him anymore. There were tears in her eyes, for which he had no sympathy, and her gloved hands were fisted and trembling. "He's your brother, and you would leave him to that same fate?"

Mikhail shook his head and pushed away from his leaning stance. He wasn't too confident that he could stay upright for long, but his newfound adrenaline was doing a pretty good job so far. "He lost the right to go by that title nine years ago when he vanished without a trace. I owe him nothing."

Ronnie's eyes hardened and Mikhail thought for a moment that she was going to hit him again. He carried on, more to dissuade her fist than anything else.

"If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be in this situation. I would be at home, most likely in college, living a perfectly normal life if he hadn't disappeared like that. And then today, or yesterday, or whenever the Hell it was, if he had told me about all this we wouldn't even be here. So I really don't see why this is my fault..."

He faltered as she rushed at him, and his hands went up to protect his face. Something hard - her elbow probably - cracked into his hip, which forced him to bring one arm down to defend it. He realised his mistake as her fist smacked squarely into his temple. He stumbled again, stars flying before his eyes, and tried to regain at least some of his now-blurred vision. Anger flared up in him again; did she not know that you could kill a person by doing that?"

"You self-centred little piece of... GAH!" She screamed in exasperation and picked up a felled tree branch. His heart lurched as the image formed in his mind of her hitting him over the head with it, but fortunately for him she took out her rage on a nearby tree. The branch cracked and split into splinters with just the first stroke. She threw the remaining piece at him instead, and he only then began to realise that pissing her off probably hadn't been a very good move.

"I don't care what the two of you have hanging over your heads; he just risked his life to save your ass, and where I come from you owe everything to him for that. Whether you hate him or not, he could be dead in there, all because of you!"

He briefly wondered if the creatures could hear her enraged onslaught.

"And if it's worth anything, which I know it isn't but I'm going to say it anyway - you would never have had a normal life. You would always have been in his shadow because he is just so much better than you are!"

Her words, and the physical force with which she shouted them, made all the strength go from his forearms and he crashed back onto his elbows. That had been a low blow.

Ronnie did not care what impact her words were having on him; she was angry. Furious. So enraged that she could easily have leapt at him and punched, and kept punching until there was little more than a bloody mess beneath her hands. She knew she had the strength to do that, but she restrained herself for the single reason that she needed him if she was going to get Tezz out of there.

She stood leaning over the Hornet and allowed her anger to dissipate away. Usually she hated the feeling of such strength as that leaving her, but she needed a clear head now. She needed to think, to come up with a good plan. Or at least to put herself back in the position where she could see what was going on around her and react with her usual speed and efficiency. For that she needed the anger to be gone.

She straightened up again a good while later when the sound of a Vandal battle horn reached their clearing. It was distant, which meant that they had found something. She smiled. That something would distract them for just as long as they needed. She turned back to Mikhail, who was still cowering in the grass at her feet.

"I don't need your help to rescue him," she lied, "But it would be useful. And I think you should consider something: despite your belief that he doesn't care about you, he risked everything to come out here alone and try to get you out of there. Are you really so pathetic that you won't even return that gesture?"

She didn't help him up, but gave him five seconds to make his decision while she swung onto the Hornet's saddle. She smiled with sadistic satisfaction as she heard him scramble to his feet and get into the Splitwire. She started the engine and turned a tight circle, not even looking back for him as she sped towards the Stronghold's gates. A frontal assault. Dangerous, but with a gaping hole in their perimeter defences, Ronnie fancied her chances.

"Do we have a plan?" Mikhail's voice was weak.

"No. Plans only fail; it's their number one disadvantage."

Vandals, it turned out, were not very good on strategy. It seemed as if they had all gone chasing after the fast-retreating pair, leaving only a handful of the weaker behind to defend their stronghold and its prisoner. As such, Ronnie and Mikhail had little difficulty breaking through the paltry smattering of guards that stood between them and Tezz. Besides him and the guards the Stronghold was empty, leaving only Captain Kalus himself, who stood before them and smiled. It was, Ronnie decided, not a good look for him.

"You get Tezz," she ordered, stepping off the Hornet and sliding her helmet away from her head. Her golden blonde hair fell from its grip and framed her face, casting dangerous shadows across her features thanks to the meagre light provided by their headlamps and the flame sconces on the walls. A magenta-handled sword ejected from her bike and bounced into her hand as she approached the grinning feline.

"Oh, so there are two of them," he purred, keeping his gaze firmly locked on Ronnie. "I did wonder. Face it, sub-creature, you do not possess the strength to beat me at hand-to-hand combat. Anything you may have told yourself otherwise is an illusion, a self-deluding..."

Ronnie didn't allow him to continue. She swung her sword hard and wide, bringing it down in an arc that would have cleaved Kalus' head in two if he hadn't brought his crossbow arm up to meet it. He squealed in surprise as he did so, and looked down at his weapon of choice to find it mangled beyond use. Still Ronnie did not return his smile; he was right - he was far stronger than her. So she wasn't going to play with him. She was going to do what she could as quickly as she could, and give the boys time to escape. Mikhail was already clambering on top of the structure to untie Tezz's ropes. Tezz's eyes were fixed on hers, but she had given her full attention to Kalus.

The cat grinned again and lunged.

She dived, springing onto her hands and coming up to land back on her feet as if she had merely taken three steps. Kalus' eyes widened in appreciation for her manoeuvre, but she was more intent on concentrating on the spear that had suddenly materialised in his hand. Damn, that wasn't fair. She drove in again, aware of the fact that if she stayed close to him he could only defend with the spear. Her weapon, on the other hand, could be used to much deadlier effect at close quarters.

Or at least that had been the plan before he trapped the wooden shaft beneath her and shoved, sending her quite literally flying through the air to land on her backside ten feet away. Her tailbone throbbed as she scrambled up.

She did not know how long they traded blows, but she knew that it was too long. Her plan to beat him quickly before she could tire had not worked. He had foreseen this strategy, it seemed, and she knew by the wry smile playing with his features that he was deliberately doing the exact opposite: drawing her out, playing with her, safe in the knowledge that his superior strength and stamina would last far longer than hers.

That was how Ronnie ended up on her knees before the lion, out of breath, muscles screaming. She was also dimly aware that Tezz and Mikhail were still standing behind her, poised over their various doors, ready to leap either inside or to her aid at a moment's notice. She growled; this was supposed to have given them ample opportunity to make good their escape and get back here with reinforcements. She couldn't keep this fight up long enough now.

Her annoyance fuelled another spark of life inside her depleted limbs and she sprang up, swinging her sword across his spear and pivoting around to catch his open side. Except he didn't leave an open side. He allowed the spear to be batted away and continued the motion. The long wooden shaft curved in a smooth, almost lazy arc, and took her feet out from under her with what felt to Ronnie like no effort whatsoever.

She fell to the ground heavily and did not have the strength inside her to get back up.

She heard someone behind her shouting - Tezz probably - but didn't spend precious effort trying to discern the words. Time slowed for her, and for some reason the image of Kalus was replaced by one of Krytus as she remembered with startling clarity her battle with him on the plains of Handler Corners all those months ago. That hadn't ended well for her either. Krytus, however, had possessed one element that Kalus did not, and as a result made the mutant feline a far more formidable opponent. Arrogance. What Kalus lacked in strength he made up for in cunning, and where Krytus had failed to anticipate that she wasn't a completely pathetic fighter, Kalus had predicted the possibility of her having strength. And as a result, he had not underestimated her as Krytus had, and she could not take advantage of his surprise.

"I confess, Sub-creature, I expected more from one wielding the sword of your leader," he was mocking her now. She was down and he knew it, so he was savouring the moment. She wished he would just hurry up and get on with it. She took in Kalus' face, grinning now with the knowledge of his victory. He stepped towards her, his every movement deliberately slow in order to prolong her suffering.

Suddenly she felt an iota of strength return to her aching limbs. Brought on by survival instincts, it was not nearly enough to allow her any chance of victory, but it might just be enough to allow her an escape.

Kalus swung his spear, aiming at her head, and she gathered all her energy and rolled.

He roared, angry at being cheated out of an easy kill. She was on her knees by the time the shaft closed in again, and without thinking brought her left arm up to defend it. Some minute part of her brain thought her shocksuit might protect her.

She heard the crack first. Her primary response was to wonder if the spear had broken over her arm, but then not a second later the pain kicked in and she screamed. It must have happened instantaneously to anyone watching on the outside, but for her that second felt like ten. Kalus began to laugh. She could only make out his vague shape through the tears blurring her vision. She pitched over again, in too much agony to do anything about his oncoming advance, her brain muddled by the pain. The only thing that crossed her mind as the point of the spear soared down towards her face was how much she wanted to throw up. She closed her eyes against the bright lights that suddenly filled her vision.

A loud wet slap, followed by the grating sound of metal on wood, brought her head back up. She wondered if she was dreaming now. Vert's crimson form spun before her, forcing the spear out of Kalus' hand and sending a roundhouse kick straight to his head. The lion whimpered and retreated back into the shadows, her brother following hot on his heels. Strong hands grabbed at her from behind and pulled, forcing her legs to uncurl beneath her. Someone was talking to her. She needed to concentrate on the words, focus on what was being said. But she didn't want to. There just wasn't enough incentive through the horrendous pain in her arm.

Then somebody slapped her and she cursed, awareness flooding her senses.

"Told you that would do it," Spinner's voice boasted from her left. She glared in his general direction and tried to steady herself on her feet before Sherman got tired of holding her there and let go without her being ready. Thankfully he didn't, and she blinked back the rest of the tears that were still spilling onto her cheeks.

"Thanks guys," she muttered, cradling her very broken arm against her stomach. Sherman patted her on the shoulder, went to take his hand away, and must have thought better of it when Vert emerged from the depths of the Stronghold, eyes reflecting thunder. Ronnie had a feeling her face would have drained of colour had there been any in it to begin with.

"Can you ride?" he barked, only giving her the briefest of glances on his way back to the Sabre. Ronnie shrugged Sherman's supportive hand away and straightened up, dropping her arm to her side against her better judgement.

"Fine," she confirmed.

"Then get back to the portal."

She did not allow herself to deflate in the deafening silence that followed, broken only by the sounds of Vert starting up the Sabre's engine and hurtling off into the Vandal night. Agura quickly followed in the Tangler, and then the Cortez brothers had gone from behind her. She stepped over Kalus' fallen spear on her way back to the Hornet.

"Ronnie..."

"You heard the man." She cut Tezz off before he could say anything that would make the tears flow again. He tried to hold her gaze but gave up when she clipped her helmet on over her hair, and ducked inside the Splitwire. The passenger door closed on the other side at the same time as his did.

Trying her utmost not to cry out with the effort, Ronnie pulled the Hornet's engine and took off after the Team into the Vandal jungle.

**:O So everyone is angry at everyone else; what could possibly happen next?! Well of course I know, but that's not the point. **

**So yes, lovely long chapter this time, simply because I couldn't find a decent place to end it before here, so there you go. You're welcome. **

**Please leave a review and tell me what you think, even if it's just a spam-pressing of letters. I did that to someone once. Not sure quite how they responded to it. ~ E.C. xx**


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